


Many Happy Returns

by AbigailKinney4life



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashed Harry, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Harry, Explicit Sexual Content, Harry Lives, Hartwin, M/M, Pining Eggsy, Post V-Day, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, amnesia harry, not as dark as it sounds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4722254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbigailKinney4life/pseuds/AbigailKinney4life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the V-day massacre, the remaining Kingsman agents are in danger once again as an unknown, vengeful force begins picking them off like flies.<br/>Eggsy, still reeling from the death of his mentor, is forced to face the reality that his one true love may not be dead at all, but is no longer the man they all remember.<br/>Caught between protecting the world and protecting Harry, Eggsy has to choose between fighting for what matters and letting go to protect himself.<br/>But it's hard to let go of what's right in front of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Kingsman or any of the characters, they belong to their respective owners. I also do not own anything else I talk about/reference throughout 
> 
> A/N: So Hartwin is just everything to me now :) I've done a couple of Hartwin fics to date (currently in the middle of another) which have been awesome but they've all been AU's and also very fluffy/Rom-Com-ish and I really wanted to do a canon!verse fic and also write something more angsty for the angstiest ship I've ever had. So be warned. This may contain some trigger material, there's a lot of heartache and violence but nothing too graphic and too horrible, typical of what you'd expect from a Kingsman story. So yeah...enjoy x

_'Many Happy Returns'_

 Origin

_'Since the 18th century this has been used_ _as a salutation to offer the hope that a happy_ _day being marked would recur many more times'_

_(_ _Source - http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/244300.html)_

Chapter One

Eggsy stepped inside Harry's home, hardly knowing what to expect.

When Merlin had informed him and Roxy earlier that evening that tradition allowed them to spend twenty-four hours with their mentor, he assumed it would be an opportunity for further training, or mentoring of some kind and the last thing he was expecting it to be was this.

What 'this' was seemed to be a full-on bonding session, spending legitimate personal time with your mentor as actual people, as actual friends because there was a potential that you could be ripped apart from one another the next day.

Aside from it being the very last thing Eggsy expected from the staunch and strict Kingsman, that is, an encouragement of affection, he found it to be a very, very ill-founded gesture.

Mainly because there was no way on Earth Eggsy wanted to spend hours and hours alone, personally bonding, with Harry Hart.

Harry was, to say the very least, absolutely fucking perfect. He was literally everything you could want in a man: gorgeous, protective, heroic...Eggsy's metaphorical list of all things Galahad went way down.

And Eggsy...Eggsy  _adored_ him.

He'd come to that conclusion not too long after Harry had been put into that coma by the asshole professor and his mystical exploding head, that Eggsy himself nearly died when Harry nearly did; that he kicked himself for not realising just how very much this posh, yet somehow other-side-of-the-tracks man meant to him. He figured it was some kind of hero complex, but Harry had picked him out of the dirt and given him everything, literally everything, and Eggsy was in deep, too deep.

And that was why he didn't need  _this,_ he didn't need Harry standing aside, graciously allowing him entrance into his beautifully maintained London home, he didn't need Harry smiling pleasantly at him and offering him tea and launching into, frankly incredible, stories of his dashing and downright sexy adventures.

It was when it started to get rather late that Eggsy fell out of his Harry-centric trance and mumbled his way through a sentence.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Harry asked politely across the room, sending him a quizzical look.

"I said, it's gettin' late." Eggsy repeated, a little louder this time, feeling his cheeks tinge red as he spoke. "What...where am I sleepin'?"

"Here." Harry replied simply, as if it were obvious. And that was it, Eggsy was full-on blushing now.

Harry cocked his head to the side as he apprehended him. "My dear boy, you've gone red."

_Well, callin' me 'dear boy' ain't helping._

"Just...stayin' here, with you..."

"Is it a problem?" He asked, looking concerned.

Eggsy sighed frustratedly as he stood suddenly, the only reaction Harry gave was narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Eggsy, please tell me what the problem is, if I can..."

"You're the problem!" Eggsy suddenly exploded, months of pent-up, yet embarrassingly one-sided sexual tension bursting from him.

Harry looked at him levelly. "What have I done?"

"You're so..."

"I'm so what?"

"So..." Eggsy struggled to find the right words. "So charmin', charismatic, clever...some other C words I don't wanna say..."

Harry stood, reaching Eggsy's level, looking suddenly very, very concerned.

"Eggsy, are you trying to tell me that you have...feelings for me?"

Eggsy glanced at the ground, feeling his cheeks hotting up for the millionth time that evening. But then there was also something weirdly relieving about the cat finally being out of the bag.

"For a few months now, actually..." He attempted cheekily, peeking up at the agent through his eyelashes.

"Eggsy...I..." Began Harry slowly, sounding honestly lost for words.

Eggsy smiled sadly at him, taking a step back. "You don't have to say anythin'," he assured him, feeling suddenly very guilty. "I...just wanted you to know, considerin' I might not make it tomorrow and we might not see each other again..."

Harry walked around his desk until he was stood in front of Eggsy. Eggsy stood a little straighter but Harry was still taller than him. It was only then, with them both being in such close proximity, that Eggsy began to become hyper-aware that Harry was a man, rather than just a mentor. A strong, built man with a sweet smell wafting from him and a captivating stare staring right at him.

Eggsy felt every reason he wanted Harry justify itself in that moment. He wished he could just do something completely reckless like launch forward and kiss him, push him back against his desk but Harry was still staring at him and Eggsy didn't feel like he was in control.

But there was something close to hesitation in Harry's eyes, the way the sparkling hazel orbs wavered as they regarded him.

"How long have you felt this way?" He finally asked, quietly.

"A few months." Eggsy admitted honestly. "Ever since you got hurt, I realised that I couldn't stand anythin' happenin' to you."

Harry nodded, once, before he was running a hand through his hair.

"This isn't good." He muttered to himself.

"What..." Began Eggsy. "I'm sorry if I ruined..."

"No, Eggsy, you haven't ruined anything." Harry assured him immediately, attempting a small smile. "I...care for you, Eggsy. Very deeply, I always have, ever since we met. Had I known those feelings were reciprocated..."

It was like a gust of air had hit Eggsy like a bulldozer, of all the things he'd ever imagined Harry saying to him when he eventually discovered the truth, that wasn't one of them.

"Reciprocated..." He repeated, feeling vaguely dazed. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." Harry mimicked, almost shyly, and Eggsy couldn't help it, he leaned it.

The pair met in a decidedly gentle kiss, a soft brush of lips. Harry's hand found its way to Eggsy's cheek and stroked. Innocent, pure.

Eggsy found himself sighing contently against the older man until he felt his mouth being opened by Harry's, his tongue being teased by Harry's and suddenly the kiss was very different, but every bit as perfect.

Eggsy sighed louder this time, very nearly moaning as their tongues tangled together, suddenly addicted to the sweet taste of Harry's mouth, the gentle yet insistent press of his lips.

He felt his head go dizzy and his knees go weak and then he was having to clutch at Harry just to keep himself upright before the kiss was over, Harry was pulling away and smiling beautifully at him, hand still very much stroking his cheek and setting fires there.

"I..." Was all Eggsy managed to say.

"As first kisses go," Harry voiced gently, "I think that was pretty brilliant."

"I agree." Eggsy croaked, and Harry laughed softly. Eggsy decided immediately that happy was a good look on Harry, one that he needed to keep.

…

Eggsy already knew that Harry talked like a gentleman, walked like a gentleman and fought like a gentleman so he felt like it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise to find out that he fucked like a gentleman, too.

Whenever Eggsy had envisioned their first time together, his first time at all, in the late recesses of the night when no one could get to his thoughts, he'd always imagined it to be a 'rough and tumble' kind of affair, in and out, like proper spies.

But here Harry was, gently pushing him onto the plush master bed, climbing on top of him and pressing his body weight against Eggsy's, hands roaming the younger man's body and mouth never leaving his; making Eggsy feel like the most desirable male on the planet in that moment.

They continued to kiss like that for what felt like a long time to Eggsy but in reality was little over a few minutes. His breath caught in his throat as Harry reared back, pulling his black polo over his head and discarding it haphazardly behind him before coming back down to him and pressing a kiss to Eggsy's exposed neck.

Eggsy let out an unexpected moan at the sudden assault on the tender flesh there, hand finding its way to Harry's locks and gripping as he continued with the gentle, feathery kisses along his pulse point.

Harry began to lick along his exposed collarbone and Eggsy groaned, simultaneously letting go of his grip in Harry's hair and letting his hand fall to the bed. Harry continued his pathway down Eggsy's chest until he was relaxed and pliable beneath him.

Harry pulled back, sitting on his ankles and, brushing his escaping fringe from his eyes, grinned down at the near-comatose boy.

Eggsy opened his eyes blearily and glanced up at the Kingsman, he couldn't help just laying there and drinking him in for a moment. Harry Hart really was a glorious creature, as Eggsy had suspected all along. Stripped down to his white shirt, tie discarded somewhere in his office and buttons undone, revealing the battle-toned planes beneath, characteristic glasses still perched on his nose and, crucially, running a hand dangerously through his dishevelled chestnut hair, just grey at the sides. As open and immodest as Eggsy had ever had the privilege to see him.

Eggsy reached a hand out, pressing it against Harry's clothed chest. He didn't particularly know why, he guessed that he was just desperate to touch him in any way he could, to bring him back down to him again.

"You're fucking gorgeous." Eggsy murmured.

Then Harry wasn't grinning anymore, he was staring, hungrily, down at him and suddenly Eggsy felt like more of a meal than a male.

Then Harry was reaching down, leaning his body forward and pressing a soft kiss to Eggsy's forehead.

But as much as Eggsy needed sweet Harry, sweet Harry wasn't what he wanted in that moment. He wanted aggressive Harry, he wanted fucking  _present_ Harry. So instead of letting him pull away again, Eggsy curled a hand painfully around the agents' neck, keeping him there, and mashing their mouths together again.

And it was perfect, Harry's tongue slipping into Eggsy's mouth and Eggsy greeting it with his own like they were old friends, but it seemed Harry was only content on obliging him for a few moments before pulling back again, stilling Eggsy's wrist with his hand.

Instead of whining, like he wanted to, Eggsy instead clambered up as far as he could with Harry teetering above him and imprisoning his wrist in his grip. Seemingly realising how hard he was gripping, Harry's hold suddenly went lax and he let Eggsy go.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Nothing." Harry replied, sounding content. "Absolutely nothing. Everything is perfect. But...we don't have to do anything right now. Kissing doesn't have to lead to anything, if you don't want it to."

"Are you protectin' me or somethin'?"

"I just don't want you to feel pressured into anything." Harry replied earnestly, with such care in his expression that it made Eggsy's heart ache. He didn't deserve someone as incredible as Harry caring about him so much.

Eggsy bit his lip, sitting up fully and Harry followed, crossing his legs until he was facing Eggsy, looking at him expectantly.

There was something odd about having Harry give him his full attention, mainly because no one had ever really cared much about what he had to say.

Eggsy found himself embarrassedly looking down, blushing and admitting something he hadn't been planning on admitting that evening.

"I've only ever been with one girl, I've never been with a guy before."

Harry's fingertips were under his chin, easing his face back to his. Eggsy was met with his gentle, sparkling hazel eyes. He attempted a shallow smile.

"You don't have to be embarrassed around me." Harry assured him.

"Yeah but you're probably great in bed," Eggsy mumbled. "Probably have loads of experience..."

"Eggsy, you're a young man. It would be ridiculous of anyone to assume that you know as much as I do, or have done as much as I have."

Eggsy visibly winced. "So then why would you even wanna be with me?"

Harry paused for a moment, hand on his chin faltering for a moment before he finally replied, hesitantly; "I've never had a more attractive offer, than taking your virginity."

"Really?" Eggsy asked, voice quieter than he'd been expecting.

Harry nodded, stroking along his jawline and tilting his head to the side. "I'd love to know that you were mine."

Eggsy blinked. "Harry." He said quickly.

"Yes?" Harry replied expectantly.

It was then that Eggsy realised that he was about to tell Harry that he loved him. No, maybe not that. But maybe something akin to that, he wanted a word to express to Harry how excited he was for their future, and that he was thankful for all the things Harry had done for him, and what it all meant to him but all that he came up with was: "I'm really glad I met you."

"I'm glad I met you as well," Harry replied, giving him a dazzlingly smile. "You could never fathom how much light you've brought into my life."

And that was all Eggsy's poor emotions could take, he closed the space between them and kissed him again, beyond words now.

"I want this," was all he said. "All of it. Please."

And then Harry was kissing him again, capturing his mouth hungrily. Eggsy moaned contentedly, finally back to what he wanted, but then as quickly as the kiss had started, it was over.

Eggsy actually whined this time.

"Are you tryin' to drive me crazy?" Eggsy asked grumpily, watching as Harry settled back down into his previous cross-legged position, straightening his glasses by way of composing himself. The very picture of ease and comfort. If anyone were to walk in at that moment, it would look like they were having a casual discussion about the weather.

"Okay," Harry began, smiling sweetly at him. "Then we have a lot to cover."

Eggsy raised his eyebrow. "What?" He asked, deadpan.

But Harry was unperturbed. "What do you know about gay sex?" He asked evenly.

Eggsy found himself blushing immediately at such a blunt question but he knew he couldn't be weird about this, he wanted Harry to take him seriously, to see him as the mature person he wanted to be seen as. He figured he'd be Kingsman soon, he needed to grow up at some point.

"One guy is the top," he said, "one is the bottom. You need to use lube so no one gets hurt."

Harry nodded, smiling. "Very good, Eggsy."

Eggsy couldn't help it, he laughed, he felt like he was in the middle of one of Harry's etiquette lessons. Harry laughed, too. A gentle, tinkling, happy sound before he spoke again.

"You should also always use a condom, no matter who you're with and no matter what they tell you. To make sure you're safe."

Eggsy nodded seriously before their eyes met.

"I don't want to be with anyone else." He said quietly. Harry stared at him for the longest moment before nodding mutely.

…

Eggsy, now completely nude, stood beside the equally naked Harry at the side of the bed. He felt surprisingly at ease being exposed around Harry, but then he couldn't imagine Harry treating him with anything other than respect.

"Lie back on the bed," Harry instructed quietly, "get yourself comfortable."

Eggsy complied immediately, easing himself down onto the soft bed. As he felt his head hit the plump pillow, he couldn't help feeling a little weary, a little nervous, so instead focused on Harry.

He took a moment to appreciate Galahad's muscular and scarred form, trying to imagine all the daring and adventurous stories behind each one. He inclined his head slightly and noticed a little mark on Harry's inner forearm.

More concentrated inspection revealed the mark to be a tattoo. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at this bit of information, Harry being the last person he expected to be inked. He couldn't clearly see it from where he was laying but it appeared to be a small black marking, surrounding something red in colour that, from this distance at least, resembled a coat of arms of some description.

Eggsy made a mental note to ask Harry about it later, when the pair didn't have so much on their minds, but was distracted when Harry produced a box of condoms and a tube of lubricant and set them down on the bed.

"Can I ask you something?" Eggsy said.

"Of course." Harry replied.

"Are you gay?"

"I am." Harry replied easily, kneeling in front of Eggsy, shifting his body weight until he was kneeling between the younger man's outstretched legs.

Eggsy's next question died in his throat when Harry placed his strong, calloused hands on Eggsy's hips and tugged him gently forward, forcing his legs to fall around Harry's waist.

Eggsy noticed that Harry was already fairly hard, and fairly hung, his cock curving into his stomach.

Eggsy swallowed, worried momentarily about the size of it, and precisely what it would feel like in his very small hole, but his own cock was beginning to fill against his stomach so he reasoned he couldn't be that afraid. Or maybe he was, maybe that was what was doing it for him.

He still felt vulnerable though, open like this, but he knew he could trust Harry. He wouldn't be here, he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't. And trust wasn't exactly something that came easily to Eggsy, what with his upbringing and the months he'd just spent being taught not to trust anyone. So with Harry, now, it felt...special. Real.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked and Eggsy nodded, smiling.

Harry apprehended him for a moment and then he was reaching for the lube, flicking the cap open and pouring some into the palm of his hand. Eggsy watched, interested, as he began to coat his fingers with the substance and then his brain put two and two together and his eyebrows flew up.

"Oh." Was all he said.

Harry smiled shallowly down at him. "They don't really talk about this bit," Harry explained. "If I don't do this...If I don't open you up then it would be extremely painful for you, and I can assure you that I would never allow that to happen."

Eggsy nodded but his breath quickened when Harry trailed his hand between them and pressed his index finger inside of him. Eggsy had braced himself for a painful intrusion and was surprised when that didn't happen, the feeling was weird, but not painful.

Confusion must have spread across his features because Harry chuckled. "How are you feeling?"

"Strange." Eggsy admitted honestly. "But...okay."

It was when Harry was three fingers deep inside of him that his back arched off the bed, and his hands fisted the sheets and he couldn't stop shaking.

"It's okay..." Harry soothed, stroking his other hand comfortingly along his thigh, then trailing his fingers along his stomach before stroking his cock.

The instant, shocking pleasure took Eggsy's mind from the fullness in his ass, the stretch to the delicate, unused skin of his hole and he found himself calming.

"There we go." Harry said gently, moving inside him for another few moments, hand still moving along Eggsy's sensitive member. It was when the feeling deep inside of him was just beginning to get as intense as it had been before that Harry slipped his fingers from Eggsy, leaving him gaping and soaking.

He shivered against the bed but his preoccupation was short-lived when he noticed Harry rolling a condom expertly down onto himself.

Eggsy again felt a stab of inadequacy at just how virginal and inexperienced he was but the feeling dissipated when Harry leant forward and kissed him, effectively closing the space between them while he used one hand to guide his cock through the first ring of semi-loosened muscle of Eggsy's hole.

Eggsy thrashed against the bed beneath him, he couldn't help it. Suddenly Harry's fingers were nothing, it felt like the oxygen was literally being pushed up out of his body.

It took him a while to relax enough to allow Harry fully inside of him, encouraged by Harry's quiet, insistent murmurs and gentle touches. When he was fully sheathed, Eggsy couldn't stop his body from spasming and clenching around him, like it was trying desperately to expel the alien fullness inside him but Eggsy found the stretch addicting.

He was worried he might dribble a bit when Harry shifted inside of him, he'd never felt anything so indescribably  _good_ in his life.

"You're so tight," Harry informed him, laughing slightly but his voice was clipped and his forehead furrowed. "It almost hurts."

"Harry," Eggsy moaned brokenly, hand travelling up the expanse of Harry's body, clutching at his shoulder as his other dug into Harry's thigh. Anything to anchor himself as his hips stuttered off the bed, desperate for more but almost cautious of what he was asking for.

After a moment, Harry moved his own hips back, snapping back forward and a noise was ripped from Eggsy's throat. The stretch, the burn was never ending and intense and perfect, and Harry's continuing, small thrusts were slowly killing him until he felt the head of Harry's cock bump against a swollen spot inside of him and he jolted, calling out as his eyes burst open. He thought he heard Harry say something but before he could even acclimatise, Harry hit that spot again. And again. And again until the shaking, uncontrollable pleasure was continuous and Eggsy was beyond processing what was happening to him.

Eggsy unconsciously wrapped his ankles around Harry's waist, using his considerable strength to pull the man in deeper, mewling at the sudden change. Harry's thrusts were suddenly sharper, harder, faster.

"Harry...fuck..." Eggsy choked out. "Shit...fuck...harder...please..."

Harry wasn't expecting Eggsy to even want him to go as hard as he was now, let alone ask for harder. But then again, Eggsy was a tough kid, Harry shouldn't have been surprised that he could take a pounding. Harry braced himself against Eggsy's thighs before he quickened the speed of his thrusts, feeling himself perspire as he did so.

Eggsy wasn't satisfied until the thrusts in and out were brutal, shoving him repeatedly into the bed until he couldn't think anymore, he couldn't speak.

Then Harry was wrapping his hand around his cock and his attention was centred there.

Harry tugged him almost aggressively until Eggsy was coming, no,  _exploding_ all over himself. But he didn't have time to relax in the brief pause, let alone even process before Harry's hard thrusts resumed, just as intense as they'd been before.

Eggsy wriggled beneath him, feeling the continued, unerring stimulation to his used prostate gland, the pleasure blurring and becoming unbearable. He could only let out a string of unintelligible moans that turned to quiet screams before he was forcing his hand between them, gripping his spent cock loosely in his fist.

And that was all it took before he was shooting again. Harry stuttered and stilled above him, letting out a strangled whimper and Eggsy knew that he'd come.

Completely and utterly spent, Eggsy couldn't physically breathe. He tried to lift his arms but they were too heavy, he couldn't concentrate on anything but him.

He wished, for one mad second, that Harry could stay inside him forever but, regrettably, he pulled out and collapsed down next to him, breathing heavily.

"Fuck me." Was all Eggsy said.

"Just did." Harry replied breathlessly, and Eggsy rolled his eyes as he rolled himself, leaning on his elbow and staring at the beautifully dishevelled man next to him.

"I don't know what the fuck just happened," Eggsy finally said, "but it was fuckin' incredible. I...I don't know what to say."

Harry smiled slightly, reaching a hand up and stroking along Eggsy's arm. "You don't have to say anything." He murmured. "Just come here."

Eggsy didn't need to be told twice, he settled immediately next to Harry, cuddling against him and sighing to himself. He liked holding Harry, he liked feeling the warmth sparking beneath his fingertips.

"Eggsy..." Harry began quietly after several long moments of comfortable, post-coital silence.

"Mmm?" Eggsy replied.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, I want you to know that I'm always going to be there for you. I promise you'll never lose me."

Eggsy felt a weight he hadn't realised was there lift. He had been worried, deep down, that if he didn't become Lancelot then a job opportunity wasn't the only thing he'd be losing.

But now...he couldn't imagine being apart from Harry.

He'd found something good here, something important. Harry was a good man, and he was his.

He fell asleep on that thought. Absolutely contented.


	2. Chapter 2

_Some days later, post-V-day_

The Valentine's day massacre was over. This news was cause for celebration for some, and mourning for others. But the main nugget of knowledge anyone had to take away from the outcome was this: the bad guy had been stopped and the world, fundamentally, continued to spin on its axis.

That was what Eggsy tried to tell himself as he left the Kingsman medical bay, glancing down at his discharge form. But if he were being honest with himself, he was glad to be seeing anything other than those four walls.

Merlin had insisted he remain there for a three whole days, enough time to treat all the cuts and scrapes he'd acquired in his boss fight with Valentine and Gazelle when he'd saved the world.

Merlin had also offered him therapeutic counselling, for the 'trauma', as he so kindly put it, that he'd suffered from his experiences. Eggsy had smiled shallowly at the offer but gently declined it. The very last thing he wanted to do about his 'experiences' was talk about them.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he momentarily took his attentions away from the discharge form and plucked it from his jeans. It was a text from an unknown number that simply read:

_you are required in the dining room_

Eggsy rolled his eyes as he put his phone back into his pocket, wondering if he had any privacy left.

As he made his way to the 'dining room', I.e the conference room, stiff and sore and depressed, his mind unwillingly wandered to the events of the last few days.

He remembered, with regret, the high he'd ridden after he killed Valentine and saved the world. The adrenaline had pumped uncontrollably through his body and made him gleeful. And that Princess...He shuddered at the thought.

But then, invariably, the adrenaline had worn off. Suddenly, all of the bruises and wounds began to sting and his bones began to creak. And he was forcefully, almost brutally reminded of all the things that had been lost.

All in all, it came down to one simple reality. He'd saved the world, yes. But Harry was gone.

And the more time he spent dwelling on it, the more time he spent alone with nothing but his thoughts in the medical bay, the less sure he became that it was an even trade.

He entered the dining room, numb, to find Roxy, a.k.a Lancelot, Merlin and Percival sat around the table along with the only two other surviving Kingsman agents, Gawain and Tristan.

Eggsy's eyebrows shot up in shock. He'd known Percival was in London but Gawain and Tristan, to his knowledge, had been on other continents on respective missions.

Though he supposed with Arthur down, and very much out, it was necessary to call in reinforcements.

"Eggsy," Merlin greeted when he saw him stood in the doorway. "Come take a seat."

A little confused, Eggsy crossed stiffly to an empty seat by Roxy. She smiled reassuringly at him as he sat and put a comforting arm on his shoulder for a moment.

"Eggsy, as I was just telling the rest of the agents," Merlin said. "Since Arthur is now deceased, and we've lost two seasoned agents very quickly, namely Galahad and Lancelot, that Percival will be standing in as a replacement Arthur until we get everything up and running again."

Eggsy sent what he hoped looked like a congratulatory nod in Percival's direction who merely nodded back.

"As the acting Arthur," Percival began, inclining his head to Eggsy slightly and apprehending him with those calculated eyes. "I want to extend my gratitude for your valiant efforts in the field, we'd be dead if it weren't for you."

"Indeed." Merlin nodded.

"Yes, congratulations, Eggsy." Gawain chipped in, smiling and patting him on the back. Tristan smiled at him and Roxy nudged him affectionately.

Eggsy knew he should have felt embarrassed, and he did to some degree, but he couldn't help being cheered by the praise. Allowing himself, only momentarily, to bask in the knowledge that he did play a big part in saving the world.

But then, he wasn't the only one who did.

"Now," Merlin continued, standing and picking up his trusty clipboard. "What we really need to begin discussing is clean-up action." There were nods around the room. "Valentine may be gone but he left some pretty nasty messes in his wake. The American prime minister..."

"Hold on." Eggsy interrupted suddenly. Merlin fell silent and regarded him quizzically. Roxy gave him a questioning look and suddenly all eyes were on him. He felt rather intimidated.

"Why are you tellin' me all this?" He asked, feeling his earlier melancholy return and cause his voice to dip. "I ain't one of you."

"Yes you are." Percival informed him, almost reverently. "You're Galahad now."

And that hurt, that really hurt on inhuman levels but Eggsy forced it deep inside of himself for later and maintained his confused, defiant expression.

"But I didn't pass." Was all he said.

"Eggsy, times are tough." Merlin told him, sounding decidedly glum. "We've lost good men, the world is in tatters and there's a fair chance that Valentine still has operatives out there without chips with instructions if anything were to happen to him. I think I speak for all of us here when I say we're not going to let go of a brilliant agent..." His voice clipped momentarily. "A hero, because of his inability to shoot a dog."

Eggsy felt the smile coming before he could stop it. He couldn't help it, Merlin's words and the agreeing nods made him glow with pride, with a sense of duty and accomplishment and honour and...

"And I can think of no better way to honour Harry's memory."

And then that hurt he'd buried so deep inside of himself resurfaced. The inside of himself was like an ocean in the middle of a storm, churning and uncontrolled, but on the outside he merely swallowed.

"Yeah." He said quietly, before standing and exiting.

The other agents watched him go. Percival, Gawain and Tristan were three flavours of confused but Merlin and Lancelot understood precisely what had just happened.

The pair shared a look, Merlin gave her a simple nod and then she was on her feet and out of the room, after her friend.

She came across Eggsy in the corridor, speeding up to catch up to him and tugging on his shoulder with one hand.

He turned instinctively to her and she was momentarily taken aback by the glazed over look in his eyes until she was overcome with an empathetic sadness for the hurt that he was going through, mainly because she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He responded immediately by circling his arms around her waist and clinging on.

"I understand," she said against his neck, having to stand on her toes to accommodate his superior height. "I know you miss him, but Merlin was his friend too and..."

Eggsy suddenly pulled back and looked at her. "I wasn't his friend." He said.

Real confusion swept over Roxy for a moment as she stared at him. Wondering why he'd be so torn up about someone's death if they weren't friends.

"Oh." She said, closing her eyes momentarily before looking back at him, recoiling when she noticed a tear drip down his cheek.

"You were more than just friends, weren't you?" She asked quietly.

Eggsy shook his head, not in disagreement, but simply because he didn't want to talk. "Just leave it out, Rox." He said dejectedly before disentangling himself from her embrace and walking away.

…

Eggsy stepped out of the shuttle, passing the plane hanger as he straightened his suit jacket and adjusted his glasses.

He felt good this way, being a part of something he'd really worked for, being part of something that was better than what he'd had before but all of those feelings were mixed up with painful memories and all he could do was banish them from his mind lest he drown in them.

Instead, he forced himself to focus on the current task at hand. Namely, meeting Merlin in his computer room for his 'initiation.'

"Good morning, Eggsy." Merlin said as he entered, and Eggsy smiled shallowly in response. The other agents had taken to calling him 'Galahad' immediately but Merlin still called him by his real name. Whether it was out of habit or a sign of respect, however, he'd never know.

Eggsy followed Merlin out of the computer room, down a sterile looking corridor and into one of the many training rooms in the mansion.

Roxy was already in there, kicking all kinds of shit out of a poor human-shaped punching bag, she smiled when she saw them enter. Eggsy gave her a little wave.

"Just wait here a sec while I go get the file, I know it's here somewhere," Merlin instructed him, leaving him stood alone as he entered a side door in the training room where they kept the candidacy files.

"Hey," Roxy said breathlessly, approaching him. She had sweat on her cheeks and running the length of her throat.

"What's 'initiation'?" Eggsy asked.

"Just paperwork bullshit," she replied through quick, laboured breaths. "Key cards, , all that jazz."

Eggsy's face fell. "Oh," he began, "I thought it might be more interesin' than that."

She grinned at him. "Never a dull moment."

And there were no dull moments during his initiation, if bureaucracy was your thing. Eggsy received his I.D pass, had his prints logged, an account created, weapon issued and was finally presented with a thick brown envelope labelled 'concessions.'

"What's this?" He asked, opening the folder. The first thing he pulled out was an A4 picture of...what was unmistakably Harry's house. "What is this?" He repeated, a little slower this time as he looked at Merlin.

"You're Galahad now," Merlin reminded him, as if it were obvious. "The house belongs to you."

"This house belongs to Harry." Eggsy replied immediately, hotly. "It's Harry's house."

Roxy sent a pointed look to Merlin.

Merlin proceeded to explain, patiently yet sadly, that Harry was gone. "And you need to find a way to deal with that." He finished.

Eggsy hesitated for a moment before looking back down at the picture of Harry's home. His mind was drawn back to the blissful night they'd spent together, Harry taking his virginity and promising that no matter what happened, he'd always be there...He felt tears well in his eyes followed by a feeling of complete shock and mortification at such an abject display of emotion in front of Merlin and Roxy.

He felt his cheeks go red and swallowed, but the situation was only worsened when Roxy put a comforting hand on his shoulder and stroked, making him feel like an absolute insufferable dick for acting this way.

"This is what Harry would have wanted," she said gently, "he would want you to carry on, to make him proud."

Eggsy took a few deep breaths before he slotted the photo back into the envelope.

"Harry was never proud of me." He finally admitted.

"He was, Eggsy," Merlin began, sounding pitiful. "He truly..."

But Eggsy was already shaking his head, feeling a wave of dejection rock through him as he remembered the argument they'd had in the bloody butterfly-infested bathroom before Harry had left for America.

"He wasn't, he couldn't have been." A lump formed in his throat. "Before he died, the last thing I ever did was disappoint him." He glanced up to see them both staring precariously at him. "I have to live with that, forever, it ain't gonna be that easy to deal with it."

…

_Some months later, post-V-day_

The world was, precariously, in a relative state of calm.

Currently, there were ongoing elections for a new president in America, which was monopolising most of the time, the death toll of V-Day and its subsequent events turned out to be surprisingly small. But still, a day of remembrance was held and marked by Queen Elizabeth II. Princess Tilde of had personally spearheaded a global campaign on the global warming issue and, strangely, Kingsman itself was even showing some small semblance of normalcy.

Roxy walked purposefully through the Kingsman mansion until she came to the dining room, the agents were already seated inside, chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the weekly staff meeting to commence.

Roxy took a seat and looked around herself for Eggsy, frowning when he was no where to be found.

"The clean-up operation is going well," Percival told them, "so well, in fact, I think it's time we begin moving on to other things."

There was a quiet murmur of agreement around the room.

"So, the next port of call," Percival continued, "is to elect a permanent Arthur."

"Basically, it comes between electing a current agent or bringing in a new person entirely." Merlin said, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses.

"We should vote." Tristan voiced.

"Yeah, but we'd need Galahad for that." Gawain reminded him, leaning back into his chair.

"Where is he?" Roxy asked. "I thought he already got back from America."

"He did." Merlin informed her, almost gravely. "He's down in the gym, he's been down there all morning."

Roxy sighed. "This is ridiculous," she finally voiced, exasperated. " I thought if we gave him a few months, he'd be okay. Or at least more normal."

"He has been pretty reserved lately." Tristan voiced to no one in particular, even the other agents were beginning to notice Galahad's downward spiral.

"I'll let him know about the vote." Roxy sighed exasperatedly before rising.

…

Roxy stood on the sidelines, arms folded as she regarded him. Eggsy was currently stood, brow furrowed, sweat pouring down his bare torso and beating the literal stuffing out of an elevated punching back.

She arched an eyebrow as she thought back to Tristan's comment. 'Reserved'? Try fucking miserable.

Instead of braving the wounded lion, she turned on her heel and left, knowing he'd just want to be left alone anyway. She'd text him the details of the vote later.

Eggsy hit the punching bag a final time with a resounding thud, stilling his fist and then he forced himself to breathe.

This was becoming more of a frequent problem than he'd been anticipating, he'd be going about his day like a normal secret agent, or a normal son or a normal brother and then some small insignificant thing would happen and just spark all of his emotions up inside of him again.

Just when he thought he had it under control, shit like this would happen and send him straight back to square one.

He'd just come back from the American elections and was passing a bakery in the airport when he noticed a basket of bread rolls and then he was in the bathroom, locking himself in one of the cubicles with tears streaming down his face and his innards in shreds. He knew what it was, of course. It was because of the fucking breakfast.

The morning after he and Harry had had sex, Harry had made him breakfast in the dining room, followed by a few etiquette lessons interjected by several rounds of snogging. Now Eggsy couldn't look at a damn bread roll without losing his shit.

He'd also learned that anger seemed to help, or rather, channelling into anger. With no bad guy to hit, he'd jumped into the gym the moment he got back and hit the punching bag until his hands were so numb he couldn't think anymore.

He struggled to get his breath back as he unwound the white bandages from his knuckles and dumped them on one of the training benches. He showered quickly, so his thoughts didn't have time to linger, before changing back into his suit and heading home.

'Home' at this point was a well-kept town house resplendent with modern furnishings and very fit for a mother raising a young baby.

Eggsy stopped in the hallway, leaning against the wall, gathering the strength needed to force the grin on his face as his sister, only very recently discovering walking, charged to him and threw herself into his arms.

"Hey, sweetheart." Eggsy cooed, hefting her into his arms before walking them both into the living room where his mother was sat, perusing a magazine. She smiled as she saw him.

The one good thing about all of this was that at least his mother and his sister had a better life now. One of the very first things Eggsy had done after joining Kingsman was giving his step-dad a good old wallop. (Well, perhaps more than a wallop, but he'd had it coming).

After that, his mother had conceded, very happily, to moving in with him to his Kingsman issue home.

Living with his mother and his sister had some downsides, privacy wasn't necessarily an issue but it did make keeping his line of work a secret that much harder but he got by. He realised that was all he really did nowadays, get by.

"How was your day?" Michelle asked, kissing him on the cheek and taking Daisy from him.

"Fine." He replied, but in all honesty, he was fairly sore from his day of working out.

"You want something to eat?" His mother asked, and Eggsy smiled and shook his head.

"Nah, s'all right. I'll make somethin' later, wanna get a shower in." He lied, knowing fully well he'd had one not twenty minutes ago. But he kissed his sister on the cheek before leaving the room.

He went out the back way this time, trying to be as quiet as a mouse so his mother wouldn't notice him leaving.

He sighed as he stepped out into the cold air, a crescent moon shining down on him from above.

He watched the steam from his breath curl in the air for a moment, took off his glasses and then he went to Harry's.

He let himself in through the front door with the only set of keys in existence. He turned on the hallway light and smiled to himself when he was greeted with the pictures on the walls and the butterfly diagrams littering the wallpaper. This was becoming a little ritual of his now, around once every week he would let himself into Harry's house and, generally, have a bit of a clean.

He made sure the pressed butterfly cases were smudge-free and the silverware was polished and the carpets hoovered. He supposed he was keeping the place spick and span for Harry's return.

He always took his glasses off when he did this, as well, because he didn't need Merlin knowing what he was doing. The Scotsman would just corner him and tell him what he was doing wasn't healthy.

Eggsy wasn't a fucking idiot, he knew what he was doing wasn't healthy, but he had to do something. It was better than spending his days crying in a ball and letting the world go to shit around him.

He wondered what Harry would say if he could see him coping as badly as he was, but that was kind of the point. Harry  _couldn't_ see him. If Harry were any kind of decent, he wouldn't have let himself get shot in the head.

Blinking away the memory, Eggsy went to the kitchen where he kept the cream cleaner and went to work.

It took him around an hour and a half to do the bottom half of the house, and he amused himself by imaging what his mother would make of such dedication to housekeeping when she had to bribe him just to do the dishes.

He moved upstairs, tackling Harry's office before his bedroom. He hated going into Harry's bedroom, being swarmed with all the memories of everything he'd felt there. But then his office wasn't much better. They had shared their first, most perfect kiss there.

He wiped down Harry's desk before letting out a breath of exhaustion and taking a quick sit down across the room. His eyes roamed the walls and reread the news headlines he'd practically memorised by now for the millionth time.

Sat there, staring at all the shit that got more publicity than Harry ever did, it occurred to Eggsy that no one knew that he had died, and no one had known that he'd died saving the world. They'd just let Harry go like he'd meant nothing, he had no legacy. Just the one that lived on through Eggsy, the one that lived on through Galahad.

But it wasn't enough, Eggsy knew that, and that was why he felt moisture gathering in the corner of his eyes and quickly rubbed them, refusing to cry twice in the same day. If he started to get puffy eyes, people might notice.

He was distracted by his phone going off in his pocket, he quickly pulled it out and read the text from Roxy.

_Hey babe, want to meet for a drink? Got business stuff to talk about x_

Eggsy frowned momentarily, wondering what 'business stuff' she needed to tell him that she couldn't have told him at Kingsman before he shrugged to himself.

He left Harry's once he'd finished and headed straight home, sneaking in quietly before changing out of his bespoke suit and into some tight jeans, black polo, white snapback. As he checked himself out in the mirror, he suddenly felt much more like his old self again and found himself smiling to himself as he jogged down the stairs, sticking his head in the doorway of the kitchen and letting his mum know he was heading out and would be late back.

He met Roxy in an upbeat club in London, hugging her as they made their way to the bar. As she leant over the bar to order drinks, he took a moment to admire the sleek black dress she was wearing, and the pointed stilettos on her feet as she stuck one out to elevate her height.

"You look great." He told her when she presented him with some odd coloured vodka drink.

"Thanks." She said, grinning. "Needed to get away."

Eggsy could tell she was pretending to be happier than she was, more than likely in an effort to cheer him up.

"So, what business stuff?" Eggsy asked, making a show of looking around himself. "You sure we're safe to talk here?"

She nodded her head and rolled her eyes simultaneously. "It's not launch codes, Eggsy. They want a vote on whether or not we should promote someone to Arthur, or whether we should bring someone else in." She nudged him. "We can't decide without Galahad."

Roxy realised immediately that that was the wrong choice of words. The light in Eggsy's eyes seemed to visibly die and he nodded before looking down, fingering his glass but not drinking from it.

She closed her eyes and berated herself. She hated this, she hated the way he tried to hide that he'd been winded so no one would think anything was wrong. Because that meant that he was alone.

"Look..." She said gently, ready to finally bring it up and put an end to this, to help her friend, but before she could say anything, her phone pinged and Eggsy's phone vibrated within seconds of each other.

Eggsy gave her a weird look as he pulled his phone from his pocket, watching as she fished hers from her clutch.

Eggsy looked down at the text he'd just received.

_Emergency. Come in immediately – Gawain dead. M_

Eggsy, wide eyed, immediately looked up to Roxy and the look she gave him clearly suggested she'd just received exactly the same message.

They only looked at each other for a brief moment before they were on their feet and out of the club, drinks abandoned on the bar.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Eggsy, Roxy and Merlin stood together in the Kingsman morgue, all staring down at Gawain's corpse.

He looked so peaceful in death, and barely scathed except for a very neat bullet wound on his chest. As if it had been surgically created instead of shot at from an incalculable distance.

But this – this was a very, very precise gunshot wound, to the heart no less. This murder had been planned.

Eggsy tried to speak around the lump in his throat but found it difficult to get the words out.

"I didn't think he was on a mission." He finally said.

"He...he wasn't." Merlin said, sounding vaguely dazed. Roxy and Eggsy looked at him. "According to his wife, he was in bed. In his pajamas."

Eggsy went suddenly cold as he thought about Gawain's real life. His family, his wife that was now left alone just like his mother had been.

"Was she given a favour?" He asked with a dry mouth.

Merlin nodded. "Percival is doing it now."

"But, if this was done out of hours, out of uniform, it might not be about Kingsman." Roxy pointed out, sounding troubled.

"It might not be," Merlin conceded honestly, "but then equally, it might be. And that means that the killer knows when they're vulnerable."

They fell silent as fear rippled around the room. It was a strange thing for a group of Kingsman agents to be scared.

Eggsy's eyes fell to Gawain again and he forced himself to look anywhere else.

"What do we do now?" He asked, by way of a distraction.

"Well, first and foremost, we drink a toast to Gawain when Percival returns. And then..." His voice darkened, catching their attention. "It's a new mission, gentleman, gentlewoman. We find whomever killed him, and we kill them."

…

Tristan exited the plane and followed his wife out of the airport, eyes cautiously trained on the two little tykes running around in front of them whilst simultaneously wondering when was the last time he'd gotten off a plane without an assassination to foil.

The thought made him smile until he snagged the wheels of his suitcase behind himself and grumbled. There were certainly perks to the Kingsman way of travelling.

It took them a few hours to navigate Spanish roads and when they finally pulled up to the family resort they had booked themselves into months previously the kids were howling with boredom.

Tristan's wife sighed as she rounded the car for the hand luggage.

Tristan merely laughed and kissed her.

She accusingly asked him what he was so happy about, he'd told her he was just glad to be on holiday, which was partially true, but then how could he tell her the whole truth?

How could he tell her that the last few months had been hellish and world-ending? That he'd been sent to eradicate a drug ring in Mexico trying to deal to the UK when he'd received a message through his glasses that James had been ripped in half. He'd wanted to get back for the new candidates but had been wrapped up in trying to locate all the dignitaries going missing around the world and then all in about five minutes, Harry gets shot in the head, some internet maniac is trying to create apocalypse on Earth and then the plucky new Galahad/Lancelot sort the sitch and every Kingsman now has to mourn all their loves ones, all the dead and put together the broken pieces of the world.

So yeah, crying kids weren't exactly going to upset him.

He opened the boot for the luggage when he felt his phone going off in his pocket. He quickly answered the phone call from Merlin, hoping nothing bad had occurred, but the techie's voice was distorted and then the call cut off.

Tristan put it down to his phone not yet acclimatising to the foreign network but if Galahad, that is, Harry, had always been brave, Lancelot, that is, James, had always been loyal, Percival had always been logical and Gawain had always been trustworthy, then it was Tristan who was always the most cautious. He'd booked this place on recommendation that it was well defended against intruders. He wasn't going to leave anything to chance. Especially not with his family near. He would quickly check in, feign needing the bathroom and then check his glasses when he got to the hotel room. Just to be on the safe side.

They got to the hotel lobby, dumping paperwork on the desk and just about to check in when the large, glass window behind them shattered, a bullet whistled through and embedded itself deeply into Tristan's chest. He collapsed just as his wife began to scream.

…

When Percival stepped out of the Kingsman shuttle, buttoning up the jacket of his black suit, he was surprised to find Merlin waiting for him.

"Merlin," he greeted. "Walk with me, what's happened?"

Merlin followed Percival through the myriad of corridors, Percival could feel the agitation cascading from him.

"I can't get a hold of Tristan." Merlin told him hurriedly.

Percival halted and turned to Merlin. Having always been the coolest and most collected of them, he attempted to interject a level of calm into the otherwise tense air.

"I'm sure he's fine." Percival assured him. "Has he checked in?"

Merlin shook his head. "That's why I'm worried, he's never not checked in before. You know what Tristan's like."

Percival nodded and his forehead creased, the first signs of worry in his features. "Well, I recommended the hotel his family were headed to, do you think you could tap into their security feeds?"

Merlin paused for a moment and then nodded. "It might take a while, because it's a different network, but I'm sure I can."

"Okay, I'll join you."

On the way to Merlin's computer room, Percival brought up Galahad on his feed and instructed him to keep trying Tristan, noting the boy's concerned expression, and then stood behind Merlin's chair as he began entering details of the hotel into a coded search engine Percival had never seen before.

"Hold on..." Merlin said quietly to himself.

"What?" Asked Percival, leaning in and gripping the back of Merlin's leather chair.

Merlin clicked out of they very complex hacking software, opened a new tab and went immediately to the BBC news page.

Confused, Percival was about to tell him that maybe now wasn't the time to check the rugby scores, until Merlin clicked on one of the headlines and Percival's jibe got stuck in his throat.

**MYSTERIOUS SHOOTING AT THE BELLEVUE HOTEL, SPAIN. ONE DEAD.**

"Shit." Percival said quietly.

Merlin leant in and adjusted his glasses, reading the article out loud:

"'Breaking news: this morning at the Bellevue hotel, Majorca, an unknown gunman shot through an open window, accidentally killing one holiday maker."

Merlin sent a look to Percival who stared grimly back.

…

Percival, Merlin, Lancelot and Galahad sat at varying seats in the dining room, all feeling strangely alone.

The air hanging around them was thick with morbidity; empty shot glasses in front of each of them.

"So both Gawain and Tristan were killed in the same fashion, gunshot wound to the heart." Merlin said, voice oddly flat. "It's deadly and efficient."

"Someone is picking us off." Roxy said numbly, staring at the varnished wood of the table. "One by one."

"Someone is picking us off one by one -" Percival interjected "- when we're the most vulnerable. Meaning they have inside knowledge."

Eggsy suddenly looked weary.

"What?" Asked Merlin.

"Well, Arthur." Eggsy explained. "He was workin' for them, he was a traitor."

"It's not any of us." Percival assured him, staring into the distance. "We all have alibis. You were with Roxy when Gawain was shot, I was with Gawain's family and you two were with Merlin when Tristan was shot."

Eggsy nodded and shut his mouth.

"One thing is certain, though." The acting-Arthur voiced. "That the four of us are about as far from safe as we could possibly ever be."

"What do we do?" Asked Roxy.

"Stay hidden," Merlin said, sighing. "Here. It's the safest place on Earth, while we try and figure out what to do."

Eggsy frowned. "Hidin'? That don't sound like us."

"It may be the only way we can survive." Percival pointed out.

Eggsy looked at the man who was acting as their leader, the man who had yet to defect or fail them in anyway, the man more concerned for his agents safety than using them as cannon fodder, and he respected his authority.

…

"Hey, mum." Eggsy said brightly when his mother picked the phone up.

" _Hey sweetheart."_  His mother greeted. Despite the fact Eggsy knew that the killer was after him and not them, he still found himself relieved that she'd picked up. She sounded happy and he could hear the telly on in the background. Normal. Safe.

"Listen, mum, I..It's work, they're sendin' me away for a few days."

" _Oh,"_  she said, surprise in her voice.  _"What have they got to send tailors away for?"_

He faltered, having not expected that. He racked his brains for anything to say. "Um...they've just introduced this new kind of fabric..." He pulled a face.

" _Oh no, don't tell me."_  She laughed.  _"You weirdos and your weird fabrics, will I see you tonight?"_

"No, the plane leaves in a couple hours. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, mum. They just sprung it on me like this."

" _Well that ain't fair of them."_

"Yeah, I know." He attempted to sound exasperated. "Yeah, I'm really annoyed but...I'll see you in a few days, okay? Just, keep yourself safe, and Daisy. And give her my love."

" _Will do, baby. Try and have fun, okay?"_

"Yeah, I love you."

" _Love you, too."_

He hung up quickly, feeling surprisingly guilty. He wished he were a tailor off to some shit new fabric convention, but instead he was stuck inside the Kingsman mansion waiting for someone to come kill him.

He took to one of the many bedrooms in the mansion. A four poster affair with a chandelier that looked like it was made in the 1900s.

He rolled his eyes before stripping quickly and clambering under the covers.

Now that he was alone, in bed, he began to feel the fear he'd been trying to keep at bay creep up on him.

There was someone out there trying to kill him, and Roxy, and Merlin. Gawain and Tristan were far more experienced agents than him and they were picked off as if they were children.

He thought about Gawain, and about the wife he'd left behind. He thought about Tristan and how his two little ones had watched him die.

He thought about Harry, and hugged his pillow tighter.

He'd thought what he was thinking about a million times in the last few months but in that moment he couldn't help thinking that it was the time he meant it the most.

"I wish you were here."

…

The next day, Eggsy woke up, dressed in his pinstriped bespoke suit, combed his hair, slid his glasses in place on his nose and joined his fellows in the dining room only to be informed that they'd be cut off from most external communications.

"You're taking the piss." Was all Eggsy said.

Merlin shook his head. "If anyone has access to this place, aside from people in the know, then it becomes automatically vulnerable. The killer didn't kill anyone here so there is a fair chance they don't even know the whereabouts of the mansion."

Eggsy and Roxy shared a dithering look.

"So what's our next move?" Percival asked.

"Information," Merlin informed them before sliding a leather-bound file across the table in Roxy and Eggsy's general direction. Eggsy flipped the cover open and peered in to a picture of a...well...of a tramp.

"What?" Roxy asked, confused. "Who is this?" But Eggsy figured he already knew.

"Eyes on underground London," he said, as if it should have been obvious. Roxy gave him a confused look. "Well, tramps in London can get anywhere they want," Eggsy tried to explain, "good at gettin' info and that."

He stopped himself before explaining that that had been one of the many methods his step-father had employed whenever he was laying low from the police after a particularly messy drugs bust.

"Try and scrounge any information you can to see if anyone high in power has been acting mysteriously, anyone talking of any grudges, that sort of thing."

"Galahad and Lancelot; I'm giving this one to you." Percival said. "I want you to stick together, safety in numbers."

Eggsy glanced at Roxy. She looked weary but nodded nonetheless.

When they left the dining room, Roxy attempted to walk straight for the shuttle until Eggsy stopped her.

"Hey, where are you goin'?" He asked.

"The mission." She said, frowning.

Eggsy arched an eyebrow, giving her waistcoat suit the once over.

"What?" She prompted defensively.

"We can't go in suits." He said. "No one's gonna talk to us if we look like fuckin' tailors." He said.

"Fine." She muttered.

Later that evening, the pair of them, clad in everyday clothes but still with their glasses so Merlin could monitor their feeds, stepped out into the cool evening.

The street lights were just beginning to come on and Eggsy knew they didn't have much of day light left.

Roxy was busy studying the folder across from him but Eggsy wearily eyed the top of every building he could see. He wasn't sure particularly what he was worried about, snipers, he supposed. But it was dark and they were vulnerable and he didn't like it one bit.

"When did the secret service get not so secret?" He grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets against the cold. He heard Roxy snort.

The pair ended up in a badly lit, underground train station that looked as if it had been abandoned long ago. Roxy frowned and pointed over the entrance.

"Why do they have security cameras over an abandoned station?"

Eggsy shrugged, too cold to really care. "I dunno, kids? Banksy or whatever. I'm fuckin' freezin'."

"It's not going to be much warmer inside." Roxy muttered as they walked in.

The only source of light came from a series of out of date, flickering bulbs hanging bare from the ceiling, covering the dusty, disused station with an eerie glow. In short, creepy as fuck.

"Well," Eggsy began, stepping out and glancing into the cavernous tunnel, enjoying the way his words echoed. "Looks like no one's home."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." Roxy muttered, pulling her phone out and using the light to get a better look at the file. "He should be here."

"One of us go check down the track," Eggsy suggested, "one of us stay here and hold the fort?"

She paused for a moment, and Eggsy knew she didn't like the same thing he didn't like: splitting up. But if they were going to get the job done then they had to get the job done.

"Yeah," she said, "I'll go, you stay here."

He was about to offer to go in her place but she was already off, headed down the abandoned track and after about a minute, Eggsy couldn't see her anymore.

Eggsy sighed to himself and collapsed against the disused ticket office, wondering precisely when his whole world had gone to shit. Whatever he'd pictured as his future the day Harry had offered him the job, it wasn't freezing his ass off in a spooky train station, looking for a tramp to stop an assassin from blowing his heart out.

He grinned to himself when he thought about it like that, all so farcical that there was no way any of it could be true.

His grin dropped when he heard a creaking noise in the distance. He stood immediately, training his ears for the noise again but nothing came. He craned his neck and looked out over the track again, expecting to see the misty form of Roxy coming into vision but nothing was there.

"Rox?" He called out, and, after a moment of listening to his own voice rebounding off of the walls, there was no reply.

He heard rustling and, rightly scared, reached around and pulled his gun from the waist band of his jeans. He swivelled around to the source of the noise, gun held aloft, ready to pop off whoever was stood there.

And then Harry stepped out from behind the ticket office and stood in front of him.

He was dressed, head to toe, in black. Almost instantly non-recognisable because he wasn't wearing his glasses, and an emotionless, almost bored expression on his face. His hazel eyes, always so bright, seemed dulled somehow and he had a jagged, although old-looking, scar running the expanse of the left side of his face.

Eggsy absorbed all of this information in a few seconds, too stunned to think of anything else.

He merely stood for the longest moment, brain momentarily shutting down as it tried to process the impossible in front of him.

Then he lowered his gun.

"Harry..." He said quietly.

Harry blinked once and cocked his head to the side, staring blankly at him for the longest moment until he held up his own gun and shot Eggsy in the chest.

And then everything seemed to go in slow motion for the young agent. The first thing he felt was the pain of being ripped through by a speeding piece of metal and it dulled everything else around him. His reaction time slowed, his vision slowed, his thought process slowed.

Then something moved in his periphery and he blinked, noticing the blurry figure he knew to be Harry disappearing away.

Brain addled, he reached a hand out to him, desperate to stop him leaving and was genuinely surprised to see his own blood staining his fingers.

And then he frowned as he remembered that, yes, that was right, he'd just been shot. And it stung.

The more he thought about his pain, the more prominent it became until he buckled under the intensity of it, knees hitting the ground hard.

He heard a distorted, female voice calling something and then he blinked, once.

"Harry." He repeated, confused, before darkness clouded his vision.

…

Roxy felt like shit as she looked through the window. She was aware of Merlin and Percival on either side of her, also intently staring inside and she felt like they shouldn't have been there, that she shouldn't have been there because she didn't deserve to be.

She took another glance through the window to Eggsy's hospital bed. Very much out cold, the young man was attached to a ventilator, gaudy bandage wound around his bare chest.

Roxy let out a distressed noise, knowing that she'd put him there, and attempted to turn away but instead turned straight into Merlin.

"Lancelot, Eggsy is going to be fine." Merlin assured her, putting his hands comfortingly on her shoulders.

She fought hard against the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

"But it's my fault he got hurt at all." She said, voice thick. "I left him alone, I shouldn't have done that. You know I shouldn't have done that!"

"What you did, was save his life." Merlin pointed out seriously. "If you were together, you would both be dead. You saved him, Roxy, he's alive because of you."

Roxy nodded, still feeling the misery in her gut but she could accept that Merlin was right. She'd gotten to him in time, he had pulled through, he was okay. They lived to fight another day.

"How on Earth did they know we were there?" She asked. "We were in the middle of nowhere, we were literally underground. Eggsy couldn't of seen who attacked him..."

"I truly hope he did." Merlin said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out Eggsy's tortoiseshell glasses.

"You have his feed?" Percival asked suddenly.

"I haven't looked at it yet." Merlin told them. "Eggsy's reaction time might have been short, but I hope to Christ he got a glimpse of the sick fuck that did this to him."

With that, the three left Eggsy to recover and headed for Merlin's computer room. Merlin sat in front of his computer and Roxy pulled up a seat by his desk, Percival remained standing.

As Merlin logged in, he inclined his head towards Roxy. "Did Eggsy give any indication of what happened to him before he passed out?" Merlin asked. "You said he was conscious for a few moments when you got to him."

Roxy nodded. "He was pretty out of it but I thought he said..." She fell silent, sighing when Merlin prompted her to continue.

"I thought he said ' Harry'." She admitted quietly, wringing her hands together.

Merlin went quiet as he looked back at his screen before finally muttering: "Well, kid thought he was going to die. Probably his last thought."

The mood in the air sufficiently dampened, Merlin scrolled through Eggsy's feed until the train station came into view.

They watched Roxy disappearing down the track and then the image shifted suddenly, as if Eggsy had sat down very quickly.

The three of them continued to watch in anticipation for the next few minutes. And then Merlin took a sharp intake of breath.

…

The door to Eggsy's hospital room was pushed gently open and Harry stepped inside, making sure to shut the door quietly behind him so he went completely undetected. He'd already taken care of the security cameras they seemed to have everywhere.

He took a moment at the door to try and truly understand what it was he was doing there. He contemplated, only for a moment, taking one of the pillows from the bed and suffocating him with it. That would be quick, easy, painless. And it would make his life a lot easier, as well.

But he wouldn't do that.

He turned from the door and approached the bed, looking down at the unconscious young man snuggled inside. His face was partially obscured by the ventilator tube in his mouth and his eyes were closed but Harry remembered the way those big, hopeful eyes had stared at him in the train station.

Confusion etched across his features, he realised that there was something close to familiarity in his face. He would almost go as far as to say that he recognised him.

Not to mention the fact that he seemed to recognise  _him._ The young man, Galahad, that was his code name, had said a name.

_Harry._

It wasn't a name he'd ever heard before, but it seemed to resonate within him. Leading him to the conclusion that, perhaps, it had been his own.

Harry took a step back, leant against the wall and sighed. It had been sloppy, intentionally missing his heart like he did.

But for some reason, stood in that train station and staring at his face, he couldn't bring himself to kill him.

He walked closer to the bed, trying to ascertain exactly what had stopped him doing his job.

With hesitation, he reached a hand out, letting it ghost over the young man's cheek for a moment, so very nearly touching him until the young man's breath hitched and he shifted slightly, as if somehow knowing how close he was.

Harry froze, no sound in the sterile air except for the level beeping of Eggsy's heart monitor. Then, as quickly as Harry was there; he was gone.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Some time later, post-V-day_

Eggsy blearily opened his eyes and winced when he was met with nothing but white, burning his unused retinas.

It took a moment for his vision to adjust and he sat up, bones stiff, until he realised he was connected to several beepy, flashy machines.

He groaned, no idea where he was or what had happened. He couldn't even remember the last thing he remembered.

He fumbled around himself until he came to the small, white plastic box by his hand and thumbed the button with the little strength he had in his numb limbs.

Only a few minutes passed and then the three remaining Kingsman agents were surrounding his bed.

"Hey." Roxy said immediately, enveloping him into an unexpected hug.

"Hey." He replied, voice groggy. He attempted to put an arm around her but found it hard to move under her insistent body weight.

When she let him go, he sat up fully. With every passing second, his strength returned and his fatigue lessened. He glanced around at all of them standing expectantly at him.

"How are you feeling?" Merlin asked.

Eggsy shook his head. "I dunno. What happened?"

"You were shot." Percival informed him rather bluntly. "In the chest."

"I..." But before Eggsy could get anything else out, Merlin was speaking again.

"We had to surgically remove the bullet from your chest cavity, and then induce a coma until the internal bleeding stopped."

"Shit." Eggsy muttered, eyes suddenly wide. "How long was I out?"

"Only a couple of days." Merlin said. "You're gonna be fine. You had a lucky break."

Eggsy glanced down at the bandage on his chest, disorientation dissipated and then everything became very real.

He used the hand that wasn't attached to anything to peel the bandage from around himself and looked down at the sore, pink scar below his collarbone.

Images of the old scar on Harry's face flashed before his eyes and he sat bolt upright.

"What?" Roxy asked suddenly. "Are you okay?"

"I remember," Eggsy said suddenly, as images of everything that had happened, and memories of the pain, came flooding back to him. He winced.

He remembered Harry pulling a gun from seemingly no where and firing. The bullet may not have pierced his heart but it might as well have done for the amount of pain the memory gave him.

"I'm not crazy," he said, panicked, as he looked at them all. "But...it was Harry."

"We know." Merlin said solemnly. "It was on your glasses feed." He explained, in response to Eggsy's confused expression. "I kept a recording, obviously, and we checked afterwards and saw everything."

"But, but..." Began Eggsy, breath quickening as he tried to process all this new information in his tired brain. "How in the hell did he survive...I mean...he couldn't have...why didn't he come home, why is he hurting people..." He gasped suddenly and then Merlin's arms were shooting out, grasping him firmly by the shoulders so he couldn't move.

"Don't get yourself worked up, Eggsy." Merlin instructed calmly. "I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for all of this. Calm down, okay."

Eggsy nodded along with Merlin as he worked on controlling his breathing until he felt his heart rate go down and then after a moment, Merlin had let him go and Roxy was grasping his hand comfortingly.

"It's okay," she was saying. "Everything is going to be okay. I promise."

He nodded, mainly just to placate her, but found that agreeing with her actually seemed to help. He smiled gratefully at her and she beamed back.

It didn't really occur to him until that moment that Roxy had been in the tunnel with him, that had Harry known she was there then she would be dead.

He grasped her hand a little tighter.

"I'm so glad you're okay." He said and he meant it.

"I'm sorry," Roxy told him quietly, eyes wet. "I'm sorry for leaving you."

Eggsy shook his head, now suddenly the comforter. "It's all right, we're okay. That's all the matters."

They both knew that wasn't the end of it, but was good enough for now.

After a few hours of getting his shit together, namely having something to eat, including painkillers, and a much needed bathroom break, Eggsy changed into some normal clothes and met the other three in one of the drawing rooms in the mansion.

Percival was sat at a table, pouring some scotch into glasses and Merlin was pacing, playing around with his clipboard. Roxy helped him sit on one of the plush sofas.

He berated her softly, telling her he wasn't an invalid, but couldn't help but feel touched at the attention he was getting.

Especially now that he was having to deal with the literally Earth-shattering revelation that Harry was alive. But not just that; he was changed.

Percival handed him a glass of scotch. "It'll help." He said quietly, before going back to the table.

Eggsy took a sip, and it burned on the way down, but did help.

As he glanced around at them all, he couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy in the air. Merlin seemed pre-occupied with whatever he was doing but the unflappable Percival was staring dejectedly into his glass.

Well, he figured that he'd just found out that his closest friend had killed his closest friends.

"To answer one of your questions, Eggsy..." Merlin voiced suddenly, startling them. "Harry isn't killing anyone."

It was as though Merlin had just read his thoughts. Confused, Eggsy turned to him, immediately regretting the quick movement as it made his sore chest constrict.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

Merlin turned to one of the hung portraits on the wall and flicked his wrist at his clipboard, as if physically throwing the image onto the frame of the portrait until it was glaring at them like a projector.

The image was of Harry, obviously taken from the feed from the train station, and Eggsy's heart hurt, but not because of the surgery.

Merlin rolled the image forward, pausing it on the moment that Eggsy had missed when he'd been too busy with a bullet embedded in his chest: Harry turning away and leaving.

The image then zoomed in and up, to Harry's exposed neck, revealing a very obvious scar at the join of his neck, behind his ear. Partially hidden behind the curl of his chestnut hair but definitely there.

Eggsy felt his blood run cold as he put the drink aside and leant in to get a better view. He'd seen the same marking too many times before.

"You think he's being controlled?" He finally asked.

Merlin shrugged, eyes wavering. "It's the only logical explanation." He said, in a tone suggesting that he was desperate to believe his own words.

Eggsy had a million and one questions soaring through his mind but settled on the obvious.

"...By who?"

…

A sleek black jet landed gracefully on a vast landing strip built into the side of a picturesque snowy mountain, standing out like an ink stain blotting on parchment.

The door opened and Harry Hart emerged, hands skimming the handrail as he jogged down the steps onto the landing pad, not stopping for a moment to adjust from the jet lag before walking purposefully through the other grounded air crafts and towards the main building hidden slyly in the rock.

There were a few soldiers outside at this time of evening, on protection detail against civilian or military air traffic, and even with their years of comprehensive combat training, they still shied away from him as he passed.

Harry didn't even look at them as he continued to walk. He knew that they were afraid of him, because everyone was afraid of him. But he didn't find it particularly distressing, or even amusing. He didn't feel anything.

He turned into the now familiar large electronics laboratory. Metal arms were manufacturing various coding chips and machines Harry was unfamiliar with were buzzing with life. Harry reached an elevated room and took the steps two at a time until he came to the office. It was just a normal office with a desk and a computer with the exception that at the far end, the wall had been knocked down and in its place was a large window allowing anyone within a clear view into the electronics lab below.

An ageing but strong woman was sitting, straight-backed, at her desk, talking quietly to a uniform-clad soldier Harry had never bothered to learn the name of. He was a right-hand man or a body guard or a lackey or something, he didn't particularly care. Not part of his mission.

He cleared his throat to announce his arrival and the two occupants turned to face him.

"Ah, Agent." The woman said, not happy to see him. But then Harry didn't think he'd ever seen her smile. If he could like her, he probably would. She was very forthright and efficient. Her plan was going to work, he could just feel it.

"Is Galahad dead?" She asked. The bodyguard apprehended him wearily with steely eyes.

For a moment, Harry contemplated telling the truth. He had no reason to lie, but then alternatively he had no reason not to lie, so he nodded. "Yes, he is."

She nodded, not bothering to congratulate him because she knew he couldn't feel pride or self-accomplishment.

She and her bodyguard exchanged a look until she looked at Harry again.

"Track down Lancelot next." She instructed.

"Yes, ma'am." He said simply before leaving the room and coming back the way he came.

…

The four remaining agents still sat in the drawing room, slowly making their way through the expensive scotch and contemplating their tumultuous existence.

Roxy was worried because Eggsy hadn't said a word for nearly an hour, instead he was just staring blankly into the distance. He'd been more chatty in his coma.

Percival was leant against the table, arms and ankles crossed, the very image of calm professionalism but his brain was churning away.

Merlin was pacing, it was the only sign he gave to show that he was troubled.

Then Merlin decided to say the only thing he could think of to break the silence.

"It makes sense that Harry is the killer." He said. "The assassin, whatever. He would know intimate details about our lives, he's our friend. Like where Gawain lived or where Tristan was taking his kids on holiday." His eyes lit up as something else occurred to him. "And of course he knew that Kingsman suits were bulletproof, everyone he attacked was out of uniform. Including Eggsy."

Eggsy was reminded of scolding Roxy for going out in their life-protecting gear when all it did was nearly get her killed. Catch himself making that mistake again.

"Harry didn't do any of this," Eggsy finally piped up. "His controllers did, we have to save him. I have to save him."

"We will." Percival assured him suddenly. "We look after our own. But we need to think right now."

They all fell silent. Eggsy tried desperately to remember any insignificant, finite detail about their night at the train station but, startlingly, all he could seem to recall was the love of his life looking at him for the first time in months with cold disinterest and then stabbing him in the back. Well, shooting him in the front, but same difference.

Roxy, doing the same as Eggsy but with less of the emotional manipulation, remembered something.

"Security cameras." She said, turning to Eggsy.

"What?" He asked.

"There were security cameras outside, do you remember?"

Vague memories of said conversation flitted back to Eggsy. "Yeah, I think. What, out the entrance?"

But before they could get their hopes up, Merlin was shaking his head. "No, Harry was – is – a good agent. He would have deleted his footage behind him."

Eggsy looked back down at the floor.

"But..." Roxy continued, "why would he?"

Eggsy looked back up.

"He's not exactly covering his tracks," she continued. "Plus he doesn't know Eggsy survived, or that I was there."

"It's worth a shot." Percival shrugged.

Merlin sighed before looking down at his electronically enabled clipboard. "All right, give me a moment. What station?"

Eggsy and Roxy spent the next five minutes detailing the location of the abandoned train station to Merlin and it took the genius in nice sweaters only twenty minutes to hack into the security link held by the neighbourhood watch.

"This could take a while," Merlin pointed out. "We don't know what time he left, if he even used this entrance at all."

"Well," Eggsy sighed. "Good thing we have booze."

Merlin used his flashy flick-trick to project the image onto the portrait and Roxy and Eggsy sprawled on one of the couches while Percival sat, in what turned out to be forty five minutes of watching flickering, grainy footage of a side view of a train station entrance with a few yards of adjoining street.

After a while, Roxy and Eggsy turned up in the picture and stood around talking silently for about five minutes before walking inside.

"It wasn't too long after this." Eggsy said, leaning forward. "Rox disappeared down a tunnel for like ten minutes and then..." He swallowed. "Then Harry was there."

The screen remained inactive except for two cats having a street brawl a little ways down for another twenty minutes.

Eggsy was ready to give up hope, to assume Harry had left through another entrance before a sleek, black Mercedes-type vehicle turned up in the image, pulling up directly outside the entrance and then Harry stepped out – Eggsy looked away – and into the vehicle which took off and then it was over.

Eggsy, still not looking back and fighting the void in his stomach, heard Percival comment: "What was the pink thing?"

"I saw it too." Merlin said slowly.

Eggsy looked back in time to see Merlin rewinding the strip until he got a frame by frame of the black car pulling away until a flash of pink flitted across the screen.

"What was it?" Roxy asked.

"It was on the car." Eggsy said quickly. "Go back a couple panels."

Merlin did as instructed and paused it when the pink was the most prominent, and then the grainy image sharpened slightly and the car was thrown into clearer view.

It was indeed a black Mercedes, so dark it blended in with the night quite effectively and on the back window, the flash of pink, was a logo.

A very pink logo, a very pink, V-shaped logo.

"It can't be him." Eggsy said immediately.

"I can't get a decent shot of the number plate," Merlin muttered and the image began to convulse under his tinkering.

"That was Richmond Valentine's logo, wasn't it?" Percival asked.

"But he's dead," Eggsy turned to Percival. "I watched him die, I stabbed him myself."

"People are coming back from all sorts of fatal injuries lately..." Merlin commented dryly, putting his clipboard down.

"But no one saw Harry die," Eggsy reminded him. "We all saw the hit, on the feed, but no one actually watched him. I watched Valentine die, he's dead. I promise you."

"You said once that there was a distinct possibility that Valentine could still have living operatives." Roxy told Merlin.

"It was a possibility," he muttered, "that just became a reality."

Eggsy laughed humourlessly, standing and throwing his hands in the air.

"Great, so we know...nothin'. The killers may or make not be workin' for Valentine in any location on the Earth, or even in the solar system." He said spitefully.

"We should start with what we know." Percival said quietly. Eggsy twirled on his feet to look at him.

"What do you mean?" He asked rather hotly.

"We know his last known location," Percival informed him patiently. "I suggest we start there."

Roxy frowned. "What, that base in that mountain range in the middle of no where?"

A white glare was thrown across the room and they all looked back to the portrait to see the image of the snow-topped mountain Eggsy and Merlin had flown to a few months ago.

"Apparently it went up for sale after it was cleared out, by the American authorities. Bought by some unknown third party." Merlin sighed, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. "I should have had it torn down," he said guiltily. "I just assumed it would rot in the side of the mountain."

"It should have done." Eggsy said darkly.

…

"So how many of us are goin'?" Eggsy asked, checking the ammunition in his Kingsman issue pistol before stowing it away in his shoulder holster.

Merlin walked past him, donning a captain's uniform resplendent with four gold epaulettes.

"All of us." He said as he passed. "Not safe to leave anyone here, plus we have absolutely no idea what we're flying into."

"You realise," Eggsy began, walking with him. "That this is a totally reckless, dumb as fuck plan, right?"

"Absolutely." Merlin admitted. "But I don't know what else to do."

"Feels weird bein' all powerless like this." Eggsy commented. "When I first met Harry, I..." The young agent suddenly fell silent, eyes hitting the floor.

Merlin was forcefully reminded of the conversations he'd had with his friend about his feelings for the boy. About how he didn't want to bring it up and take advantage of him. But with the way Eggsy had coped with his death and by the way he was currently coping with his resurrection; Merlin was fairly certain it had been brought up.

"Hey." Merlin said, getting his attention. When Eggsy looked at him dejectedly, he attempted a comforting smile. "We're gonna get him back."

Eggsy nodded and tried to smile back, Merlin had to admire him for it. "I know." He said.

Once they were in the air, they began to arm themselves. Roxy loaded a Kingsman pistol, Percival stashed a few hand grenades in his pocket and Eggsy glanced at the umbrellas, but he felt a pit form in his stomach and left them where they were.

…

"Hey, you might want to come look at this." The uniform-clad bodyguard called over his shoulder.

The ageing, stealthy woman walked across the space and glanced at the large computer monitor her bodyguard was referring to.

On their security camera feed, she watched as an unknown black jet tore through the sky towards them.

"Can't seem to identify them..." The bodyguard muttered, tapping away at the keyboard but she knew it to be fruitless.

"No doubt our Kingsman friends paying us a visit."

"Oh." He said, and stopped tapping.

She raised an eyebrow at the image of the approaching jet and stood tall, crossing her arms.

"Alert the soldiers that we have hostile forces arriving." She instructed, eyes narrowing. "And bring me the Agent."

 


	5. Chapter 5

"Guys!" Merlin called worriedly from the cockpit.

Percival, Lancelot and Galahad all stared at each other, concerned, before Percival stood and walked through the galley to the flight deck.

"Oh." They heard him say after a moment.

Eggsy and Roxy shared a look before they were on their feet and in the cockpit as well.

"Wha...oh." Eggsy said.

They were just beginning their descent onto the landing strip they had come to before, but instead of the bare, dark opening – it was brightly lit and a very large, mounted sub-machine gun was pointed directly at the nose of the plane.

"What do we do?" Roxy asked quietly.

"They're signally us, so I guess we land." Merlin said, voice even.

Fear shot through Eggsy's spine as Merlin touched down onto the landing strip, taxing down the line for a few moments, straight past the machine gun that didn't fire.

But the relief was short lived when around twenty or so British-uniformed soldiers, all at arms, gathered around the nose of plane.

"Well shit." Said Percival.

The four of them stepped out of the jet, walking one by one slowly down the steps, hands elevated in the air.

Eggsy was the first down and the minute his foot touched the ground, the nearest soldier approached him swiftly. But instead of shooting him, he grappled him.

Every instinct was telling Eggsy to throw this guy over his hip and knock him out but, following Percival's instructions, he allowed the soldier to search him and then hold his hands roughly behind his back and push him forward, towards the entrance of the base.

The same treatment was given to the other three until they were being frogmarched through the entrance and down one of the rock-walled corridors Eggsy remembered.

It suddenly occurred to Eggsy that maybe the plan was simply to chuck them all into the well-furnished prison cells he'd seen last time, which would royally scupper all the escape avenues they'd considered, but relief washed over him as they were walked past them and emerged into a large room.

Despite his lack of technical knowledge, even Eggsy could tell that they'd just entered a large, technological manufacturing laboratory.

It was clear from the conveyor belts and the robot arms. The technological and biometric machinery was all currently silent and immobile, making the room eerily quiet.

But the more Eggsy looked around the room as they were marched through it, the more he felt like he recognised it but he had no idea where from.

But then he noticed a woman staring down at them at the far end of the room, standing within a raised office with one glass wall and he remembered.

This was the same ballroom he'd killed Valentine in, there was even the same elevated platform in the middle on which he'd killed Gazelle.

The memory only served to make him feel oddly proud and he allowed himself a moment to wonder if he was a bad person.

The woman apparently descended from her office and walked out in front of them, giving the agents a clear view of her for the first time.

She was obviously in her sixties, but still strong and capable, wearing a tailored, black skirt-suit with her dark hair pinned back. Very professional. Obviously the boss.

She stopped in front of them, eyeing them sternly with her hands clasped behind her back. An infantry soldier with a S.A 80 Mark 2 Assault Rifle in his arms flanked her.

Eggsy nearly thanked the lord when Percival, brilliant Percival, broke the silence.

"Who are you?" He asked, betraying no sign that he held any fear or doubt.

But, seemingly unperturbed by the forthright leader, the unnamed woman merely stared him down with dark, penetrating eyes.

"I don't think you're in the position to be asking questions." She replied in an American accent.

"Actually, on the contrary." Percival continued conversationally, as if they were sharing a coffee rather than being restrained by an armed guard. "We've been kidnapped and we have nothing to lose. You want us all dead, obviously, that's why you had our colleagues gunned down in cold blood. We could be shot at any moment."

And then he did something Eggsy had never seen him do before. He smiled.

"If we're going to talk, I might request a more comfortable setting." He finished.

The woman stared levelly at him for a moment before inclining her head and giving the barest nod to the soldier restraining him.

The soldier stood back and released his captive, but apparently the rest of them weren't allowed the same privilege.

Percival merely straightened his suit jacket before taking a step forward.

The bodyguard behind her immediately levelled his assault rifle at him.

Roxy let out a quick breath and Eggsy attempted to break free but to no avail, Merlin stayed still.

Percival stared at the gunman for a moment before gently raising his hands to shoulder height, remaining otherwise motionless.

"Who are you?" The woman asked.

"My name is Percival." Percival answered easily, before using one elevated hand to gesture to the rest of them slowly in turn. "This is Merlin, Lancelot and Galahad."

Her eyes travelled over each of them as they were identified but seemed to waver slightly on Eggsy. He frowned, confused, hoping it was merely his imagination.

Her gaze then moved away from them and she fixed them all with a steely stare. "Kingsman." She identified.

"Might I ask your name?" Percival said.

"My name is Valerie Valentine." She revealed.

Roxy sent a subtle glance to Eggsy and even with her restricted eye movements, he could see she was just as troubled as he was.

Merlin stiffened next to him but didn't say a word.

"I believe one of your well-dressed agents killed my son."

Eggsy heard a huff come from beside him and turned a head to see Roxy, rather than looking scared, looking incredulous.

"So that's what this is about?" She said loudly. Merlin stared, shocked, across at her but she was undeterred. "Revenge? Your son was a monster."

Eggsy was aware that Roxy had the moral high ground, and was behind her in spirit, but he was also acutely aware of the assault rifle still levelled at Percival's head .

"My son was a hero." Valentine said calmly. "You know, I was the one that got him interested in all this -" She gestured around herself at the machinery. "-electronics and coding. The unappreciated art. It was always my forte." She sighed then, and suddenly looked much more human than she had previously. "I thought Richmond had the potential to save the world," she continued, before she glared. "And he did. You did not just condemn my son, you condemned the world. And once I'm done with you, who knows, perhaps I'll continue his work."

Eggsy decided she was fruitloops.

"Not to reawaken an old cliché..." Merlin finally spoke, sounding rather downtrodden. "But you wont get away with this. You know you wont. Because you're the bad guy, and you kill for no reason, you're destined to lose."

She smiled then, and Eggsy believed he preferred it when she was glaring. It was a toothy, sharky grin that strangely made him expect bad things to happen.

"I do have something he didn't have." She said, before reaching a hand out to her side and beckoning.

Then Eggsy understood the bad feeling in his gut. Everything slotted into place in his mind and he knew what was going to happen before it happened.

But his prior knowledge did nothing to stop his stomach dropping and his world collapsing when Harry walked over.

Now in the sterile light of the laboratory rather than the dingy light of the train station, Eggsy had the chance to get a proper look at him.

He was indeed dressed in all black but now he could see it clearly; he identified it as a light, Kevlar material. Again, he wasn't wearing the glasses that had become synonymous to him, which was instantly odd, and he had the same, jagged scar on the left side of his face.

Additionally, Eggsy noticed that he had a thigh holster strapped to his left thigh with an unidentifiable black pistol inside, which instantly explained why he did not notice him pulling a gun on him the last time they met.

Harry came to stand beside the bodyguard with the assault rifle, hands hanging by his side and staring at nothing in particular with a disinterested look on his face. He blinked.

"Harry." Merlin said quietly, voice dipping.

"What did you do to him?" Roxy asked angrily.

"I saved him," Valentine explained, looking at Harry and smiling, and then Eggsy cared as much about the guards as Roxy seemed to. He wanted to rip her away from him, to grab Harry and run no matter the consequences.

"When I found him, he was dancing with death, bleeding out onto the warm concrete." She approached Harry and Eggsy tensed, watching in disgust as she gestured around his eyes, next to his scar. He didn't move. "Your impressive Kingsman glasses absorbed most of the initial shock of the bullet, even at close range. This caused it to ricochet into the left side of the skull, destroying most of the bone plate there."

Eggsy felt hot tears form in the corners of his eyes as Harry's horrific final moments were described in vivid detail. He remembered how much it had hurt to have a bullet pierce his skin, he tried to imagine the amount of pain Harry must have gone through having it shatter his skull.

"We managed to replace the broken bone with metal plating," she continued, as if talking of fixing a car engine rather than a human being. "And I believe, considering we saved his eye, I don't think the scar is all that bad, do you?"

She sounded proud, she sounded  _smug._ Congratulating herself on a job well done. Eggsy was going to vomit.

She ran a finger along the scar on his face and Harry didn't react. And that was probably the worst thing. Eggsy knew he didn't know Harry as well as Merlin or Percival, but he knew him intimately, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that, if given the choice to die on that pavement or live like this, he would have chosen to die. Keeping him alive seemed cruel and morbid.

"Why would you even do this?" Percival asked, sounding oddly distressed.

"I had access to my son's cameras." She explained. "I watched the agents little 'actions' in the church. He must have taken out seventy people in three minutes. It was spectacular, it was glorious. I knew then that he would be the perfect assassin, if I ever needed such a thing. But what can I say? I plan ahead. After my son was murdered, it turned out that he became very useful. Ten points to me."

"What have you done to him?" Merlin asked accusingly, narrowing his eyes. "I've known this man for over twenty years, he would never do this voluntarily. He's too strong."

Valentine turned Harry's head gently, exposing the scar on his neck that they'd earlier discovered on Eggsy's feed.

"This was my son's invention. I call it an inhibitor chip, loosely adapted from the same data in the sim cards."

"Mind control." Merlin simplified.

"I wouldn't say mind control," she cut in. "I can't command him to do anything. I have merely released him from his emotions, it makes him work on basic instinct alone. The perfect, ruthless, killing machine. He only follows me because he chooses, I think it's because I'm powerful." She pointed at them. "All of my wonderful soldiers have them, as well."

"So that's how you command loyalty, then?" Merlin asked icily.

"It's the only way to ensure true loyalty." She replied just as coldly, eyes travelling over Eggsy as she spoke.

Unfortunately for her, that seemed to spark Eggsy back into the land of the living and, staring at Harry, he finally spoke.

"He didn't recognise me." He said quietly.

"I'm sorry?" Valentine asked, looking at him.

"He didn't recognise me." Eggsy quickly clarified, voice tight as he looked at her. "What did you do to his memories?"

"That, I'm afraid, was not me." She admitted. "As far as I can tell, the close range of the bullet and the shock to that part of the brain has caused some temporary amnesia."

"But he knows things." Merlin pointed out confusedly. "From our agency, things he would have had to remember."

Valentine nodded. "Bits and pieces of his memory seem to return to him every now and then. When prompted."

Eggsy let out a short breath, feeling something deep inside of himself that he never thought he'd feel again. Hope. Small at first, an ember that would burn bright into a forest fire with enough coaxing.

If they could just get to Harry, if they could just get him home then they could get him back.

During this thought process, he failed to notice that Valentine was still talking and only managed to hear the last part of her sentence.

"...and then once the agent fulfils his usefulness, then I'll kill him. I'll kill my soldiers too if that's what it takes to cover my tracks. My son was always too loud, too brash. He lacked the art of subtly."

The soldiers didn't react to their death sentence, nor did Harry.

But Eggsy did.

He tried, desperately, to lunge at her but was held back by the superior strength of the towering soldier restraining him. "You can't do this!" He snarled at her.

"Why ever not?" She asked calmly.

"Because Harry isn't yours!" He shouted, still struggling against his restriction. "He's mine!"

"Enough!" Valentine shouted.

A deathly silence blanketed the room, Eggsy stopped struggling and stared, suddenly terrified of what he'd just caused.

Then, as calmly as before, Valentine turned to Harry.

"I'm bored of this now." She told him. "Kill them all."

Then she turned on her heel and walked away.

The thing about being a Kingsman agent was that you became desensitised to this sort of situation, and death threats weren't as mind numbingly terrifying as they would be to a civilian because you had the kind of expertise that gave you at least a fighting chance.

So when Harry's hand hovered over the pistol strapped to his left thigh, it wasn't that surprising to either Galahad, Lancelot or Merlin when Percival walked calmly towards him.

There was real sorrow in Percival's dark eyes and when he spoke, his voice was solemn.

"Harry, dearest friend, I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I know that you know everything about me, because we've walked the battlefield together, but that rather means I know everything about you. I know that you're right handed."

Successfully recognising Harry's tactical feint, Percival was anticipating it when Harry passed the pistol quickly from his left to his right and was able to intercept the weapon, wasting no time in pointing it directly at its owner.

Taking this as the cue to follow the orders Percival had given them before they'd exited the jet; Eggsy, Roxy and Merlin identically drove an elbow into the ribcage of their respective captors.

Eggsy heard his captors rib crack under his own bone and twisted, pistoning his leg out behind himself and connecting with a hip, sending him sprawling and successfully tugging his rifle from his hands by the time he had straightened.

Roxy's elbow landed in the soldiers stomach, effectively winding him and she quickly drove her hand upwards, palm whacking painfully against the underside of his chin, causing his brain to collide with the inside of his skull and he twirled and collapsed, unconscious, leaving Roxy able to simply bend down and pluck the rifle from him with a finesse that Eggsy envied.

The force of Merlin's elbow sent his captor hurtling back and before he was able to right himself, Merlin pulled his arm back, changing the angle and sending the elbow straight into his face. Eggsy could hear the obscene squelching of his nose breaking across the room.

The minute Merlin had a weapon in his hand, he span and shot Valentine's remaining bodyguard through the neck. Blood splattered from the hole and then he was on his knees, and then on his back. He gargled and then gargled no more.

The Kingsmen span as they heard footsteps on the varnished floor and watched as around fifteen of the armed soldiers from the landing strip charged through the only exit, blocking their way and aiming their guns. They were trapped.

Roxy eyed the door through the gaps in the soldiers, certain they could battle through and make a run for it. "We have to get back to the plane!" She shouted. "Or we're all dead."

Eggsy's head shot to Harry, still held at gunpoint by Percival, and sent him a pleading look.

"Please, come with us." Eggsy begged.

Harry apprehended him for a moment, cocking his head to one side in the way that Eggsy was used to. Eggsy could swear he saw a flicker of recognition cross those dull brown eyes before he simply turned and left the way Valentine had gone.

Eggsy charged for him, nearly dropping his assault rifle in the process but then he felt Merlin's strong arms around him, shoving him roughly in the direction of the door.

Growling, Eggsy turned and charged for the wall of soldiers, lifting his weapon and executing two head shots in around ten seconds.

The other soldiers, all inhibited as Harry was, weren't perturbed by such an abject display of ruthless violence and immediately opened fire.

Roxy ducked to the floor, grabbing a handful of Eggsy's suit and taking him down with him.

Eggsy landed heavily on the ground, groaning as he heard bullets screeching above him. A bullet collided with his breast and was deflected by his bulletproof suit jacket, but the suits weren't impact absorbent and the force of the hit sent him sprawling on his back.

He saw the heavy-duty lighting system on the ceiling and immediately pointed his rifle upwards and fired, no time to figure out if such a feat would work.

Sparks erupted from the damaged electrics, sending a shower of heat and pain down to them.

Roxy screeched and pulled the back of her suit jacket over her head, Merlin and Percival used the distraction to barrel through, shooting whoever got in their way as they cleared a path to the door.

Eggsy was up on his feet, one arm around Roxy's waist and pulling her to the door. They ducked and dived from the remaining soldier's bullets, some hitting them and some whizzing past, before they were out into the labyrinth of cell-corridors again.

"I hope you remember the way!" Roxy called out as they began to run, the remaining soldiers hot on their heels.

Merlin led the way in front and Percival wrapped a firm hand around Eggsy's wrist, giving him purchase to twist around and fire at the soldiers gaining on them while he ran.

Roxy suddenly stopped in the middle of the corridor, holding her ground while she shot two down, they collapsed at their feet and the approaching soldiers tripped over their dead comrades.

Roxy span and ran, catching up with the rest of them as they ran out into the, blissfully empty, landing strip.

"We don't have time!" Roxy shouted quickly, already hearing the heavy footfalls of the remaining soldiers on her feet.

The four of them raced up the stairs and piled into the jet, Merlin bolting into the flight deck and starting up the first engine.

Percival ran to the nearest window and watched in horror as the machine gun began to move and lock onto their position.

"Merlin..." He called out. "Hurry!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Merlin shouted angrily back, thumbing the button and shoving the lever down, starting engine two and lifting them awkwardly into the air.

Roxy and Eggsy were thrown from one side of the galley to the other as the jet tilted with the rushed take off, and then there was a crash, a blast of orange streaming past the windows and everything ricocheted and the lights went out.

Eggsy genuinely believed that they were going to die. He clung to Roxy where they'd collapsed against each other, he squeezed his eyes shut and he said goodbye to his mum and his sister, he wished them a good life, he told Harry all the things he should have told him before it was too late and he breathed slowly.

One by one, the cabin lights flickered back to life.

Eggsy cracked an eye open and saw Percival half-bent over one of the seats, Roxy clinging to him and staring, wide eyed, at him and then the jet dipped in the other direction, straightening out until they were level again.

"If anyone cares," Merlin called from the flight deck. "It didn't hit us."

Eggsy breathed heavily as he stood on shaky legs, not letting go of Roxy as he righted himself.

Percival looked out of the window again, watching as the mountain disappeared from sight behind them.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Harry entered Valentine's office as blasé as if he were bringing news about the weather rather than world war three having just broken out and destroying half of the electronics laboratory.

"Yes?" She said, not bothering to look up from her computer as she heard him approach.

"They've escaped. The Kingsman."

She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "Oh, no matter. I instructed you to end them more for show than anything else, we'll get to them in good time."

Harry nodded. "We weren't expecting them to find us." He said.

Valentine finally looked up to him. "I was." She informed him. "You and them are cut from the same cloth. I figured if any of them could track as well as you can then we'd be expecting a visitor any day now." Her eyes narrowed. "One thing I wasn't expecting, however, was for Agent Galahad to still be alive."

If Harry hesitated at all, it didn't show on his face.

"I'm sorry." He said emotionlessly. "I must have made a mistake."

She stood from behind her desk, nodding understandingly in agreement as she approached him. He expected the cold press of gun metal to his temple before it happened.

"I suggest you take care not to make another one." She said calmly, almost sweetly, as she ground the gun painfully into the remaining bone of his skull. "Unless you want another hole in your head. It would provide nice symmetry, though."

Then the gun was gone.

"Finish the job." Was all she said before walking back to her desk and resuming the work on her computer as if the little meeting hadn't taken place at all.

As Harry walked to his destination in the base, passing the engineers trying to fix the destroyed lighting system in the laboratory, he decided that he wasn't offended that Valentine had threatened him.

She was just upset that the Scottish Kingsman had killed her friend, that bodyguard.

He reached the loading bay he had been heading for, walking inside and pulling one of the password protected boxes down, he thumbed in the number and watched as the top unsealed itself, he pulled out a handful of close-range explosives but was far too pre-occupied with his own thoughts to pay them much mind.

He considered suggesting to Valentine that she give herself an inhibitor chip, that way she would no longer care about her bodyguard and her work would be more efficient.

He placed the explosives into a black bag and slung it over his shoulder as he left the room, finger slowly trailing along the scar on his neck.

The bespectacled young man's face flitted across his mind, and that pleading look in his eye that he'd given him when he begged him to come with him.

It gave him enough odd stirrings even now, he imagined the emotional struggle he'd be in if he actually cared.

He mused that this inhibitor chip really did make life a lot simpler.

…

All returned to the safety of the Kingsman mansion, Eggsy took to one of the many bathrooms and stripped from his suit, hissing in pain at the blossoming bruise across his breast bone from where he'd been hit with that bullet.

He had a few other bruises scattered around, and now that his heart was no longer thumping manically because he thought the jet had been blown from the sky, he began to feel the pain in his bones.

He took a quick shower, allowing the spray to unknot the tense muscles of his back as he tried to convince himself that he wasn't dead.

That was as far as he could think right now. He wasn't dead. He'd survived, they'd all survived. He couldn't think any deeper than that, because if he did, then he'd have to think about everything he'd learnt and everything that had happened and if he thought about any of that, he really would die, and he wasn't in a position to do that just now.

He dried and changed before he met the rest of them, all in varying states of heightened anxiety, now with a new mission on the cards.

It was almost depressing that they were all locked inside the Kingsman mansion, trying to figure out a way to kill Valentine – again – but Eggsy was fairly sure that a knife to the back wasn't going to cut it this time.

She was more cunning than Richmond, more was at stake this time.

It was obvious that they were all employing Eggsy's tactic and actively avoiding the elephant in the room – namely Harry.

Percival suddenly rose, even he looked weary.

"You should all get some sleep." He said, sounding drained. "It was a tough day."

Eggsy was the second to stand. He cleared his throat and they all turned to him.

It didn't look like his eyes had the strength to show any emotion other than complete and utter dejection.

"I'm sorry." He apologised. "I put your lives in danger today, I promise it wont happen again."

He left immediately, clearly distressed.

Once she was certain that he was out of earshot, Roxy leant across the table to Merlin.

"Be honest with me," she said, eyes pleading on behalf of her friend. "Is there any way to get him back?"

"I don't know." Merlin sighed. "But I think the biggest hurdle and the one that Eggsy is struggling with the most, is that it seems like Harry doesn't want to come back."

"But he doesn't know what he wants." Roxy pointed out. "He's being controlled. We're his friends, we have to try, right?"

"We will." Percival said suddenly from across the room. "I want to help Harry as much as Eggsy does, but I think Eggsy may need time to figure out what it is he really wants."

"He doesn't know what he wants." Roxy echoed dismally. "He's being controlled."

"And by forces much stronger than technology." Merlin chipped in unhelpfully.

Roxy sighed as she stood. "I'm going to bed."

…

The minute Eggsy had changed out of his suit, he left the Kingsman mansion and he went home.

Not to his new house with his mum and his sister, he'd never endanger them in that way, but also because he wanted to be really home. He went back to his old council estate. The one he'd grown up on, the one he'd lived in when he'd quit marine training. The one he figured would be his lot for the rest of his life.

He'd spent so many years wishing to never see the place again but now that everything had gone to shit it was all he wanted to see.

He supposed what it came down to was being able to pretend that none of this had ever happened. That Harry Hart hadn't beaten up a bunch of thugs in front of him, offered him a one way ticket to stardom and stolen his heart in the process. A world in which the world wasn't on the brink of chaos, his life and his friends lives weren't in danger from the one thing he knew he'd let kill him before he killed it.

He picked up a disused lump of metal he was fairly sure was from a car body frame work before he walked towards a garage that hadn't been used for about ten years. Kids used to always go inside and play with the left over tools or graffiti the place so when Eggsy was about fifteen, the council had padlocked the protective gate. But it was no matter, every time they did he'd just find something heavy enough to break the padlock.

He grinned to himself as he smashed the metal down onto the weakest part of the lock, watching as it fell to the floor, before he lifted the gate, revealing the musty door that led into the garage.

The glass on the door was so dirty from years of grime that Eggsy couldn't even see through it properly. He opened the door and walked inside, finding himself smiling at the dark room within. Now this, this was memories.

He used to spend a lot of time in this room when he was young, it was where he used to hide from Dean when he went on one of his rampages, or where he'd hide from the other kids when they laughed at him for getting A's and B's at school.

In a nutshell, this was the place he used to go to vent all of his emotions. Everything he'd felt, every tear he'd cried was in this room somewhere.

He walked inside, enjoying being enveloped by the welcoming darkness. He felt for a wall and sat down, leaning against it.

He looked around himself for a moment before, for the first time since all this had kicked off, he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by it all and he cried.

Harry stood outside, staring at the grime-covered window, the bag of close-range explosives over his shoulder.

He knew it was a little brutal, but then he also knew that he'd never be able to kill this Galahad if he had to look him in the eye again so this had to be the way.

He made quick work of setting and arming the explosives outside of the door, he wanted to be gone as quickly as possible so he didn't have time to change his mind again.

He turned his back, seeing the sun just dip below the horizon as he went to leave but then paused when he heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing drifting through the grime -smeared door.

Eggsy was...Eggsy was crying.

Entranced by the sound, and as if he were working on autopilot, Harry found himself gently opening the door and stepping inside.

The ajar door cast some light into the room but Eggsy obviously hadn't noticed. He was leaning against a wall, curled into a ball and crying earnestly into his lap, hands grasping at the back of his head as his frame shook.

Harry felt something unmistakably close to compassion, to sadness even and that confused him because he was fairly certain he wasn't supposed to be feeling at all.

He wondered what precisely it was about this man that meant so much to him. All he'd done was scupper Harry's plans but he couldn't bring himself to hurt him, he didn't even like seeing him hurting.

So distracted was he by his thought process, and by staring at the distressed boy in front of him, that he only remembered the armed explosives when it was too late.

He turned his head, letting out a shocked 'oh' just as they detonated.

Cracks appeared in the wall almost immediately and then the roof was caving in, the rubble landing on Harry, the impact ripping his clothes and tearing his skin and forcing him to the ground under the weight. Then nothing.

Eggsy coughed and spluttered, blinded by the dust and deafened by the blast, trying to expel the dust from his lungs as he attempted to stand on wobbly legs, he felt something sharp at his side and knew he'd been hit by some of the debris but he didn't have time to worry about it now.

He flapped his hand in front of him, clearing a path in the dusty air as his ears rang and his vision slowly returned to him. The world lurched in front of him and then he was on his side, vomiting onto the dust-covered floor.

He turned his head, leaning on the ground and trying to get any oxygenated air before cracking an eye open.

His eyes widened when he noticed an arm protruding out from under a pile of what had previously been ceiling. If he weren't Kingsman, he might have wondered how the fuck another person had been in there without his noticing but instead, he ignored the pain and fatigue and forced himself to his knees, scrambling to the immobile limb.

Eggsy rubbed his eyes, wincing at the sting, as he tried to get a better look at what he was dealing with. He immediately reached for the arm, half-registering a black and red coat of arms tattoo on the inner forearm.

Eggsy frowned for a moment, trying desperately to remember where he'd seen such a distinctive marking before but then he saw Harry grinning before his eyes as he ran his fingers through his hair, exposing his bare arm to him and Eggsy's heart actually stopped for a moment.

He jerked back to life and began desperately pulling the rubble away, brick by brick, with renewed strength he didn't realise he'd had.

Shit, shit, shit...He thought to himself as tears spilled uncontrollably down his face. Shit I can't be too late, I can't be too late.

Luckily for both of them, the roof had only partially collapsed. Had Eggsy been on the wrong side of the room, he'd be dead right now.

Eggsy gasped, still finding it hard to breath, as he pulled Harry from the wreckage. He could already see blood and let out a wail.

"Come on, wake up, please wake up..." Eggsy said desperately as he shook Harry roughly, desperate for any signs of life but Harry gave him none.

Lip quivering, tears still falling thick and fast, Eggsy pulled his, miraculously unharmed, phone from his pocket with shaking fingers and dialled Merlin whilst simultaneously pressing two fingers to the scar on Harry's neck in search of a pulse.

He felt Harry's lifeblood throb beneath his fingers and let out a long, shaky sigh of relieve.

"Oh, fuck...you're gonna be okay..." He promised breathlessly before Merlin picked up.

…

Eggsy leant against the wall in the corridor, peering in through the observation window as Merlin leant over Harry's body, adjusting the computers on his side.

Eggsy crossed his arms loosely as he stared, feeling oddly numb. He supposed he had just nearly died after all, but with nothing but a sore throat and a minor graze at his side, he was the lucky one.

Harry hadn't been so lucky. He had cuts and scrapes littering the expanse of his skin where the rubble had torn it.

Merlin had stitched what needed stitching and applied an ointment he had explained would reduce the risk of further scaring.

Eggsy turned his head and watched as Roxy turned into the corridor, rushing to him and throwing her arms around him.

"Oh, Eggsy, thank god. Percival told me about the collapse, and when you said to meet you in the medical bay I thought something awful must have happened."

"It did." Eggsy muttered against her neck.

Roxy pulled away and gave him a questioning look. Eggsy beckoned with his head to the observation window. She turned and gasped, having not expected to see Harry lying on the bed inside.

Unconscious and stripped to his underwear, body littered with bandages and stitches.

"Jesus Christ..." She said, turning to Eggsy. "What the fuck happened?"

But before Eggsy could explain fully, Merlin exited the door to the medical bay next to the observation window and joined them.

"Hello, Lancelot." He greeted rather grimly. "Eggsy, I've decided to take advantage of his unconsciousness. I'll probably perform an MRI and a few brain X-rays, just to see what we're dealing with. Then I'll be able to do all I can to remove the inhibitor chip. The amnesia can only be left to time."

An unidentifiable emotion flitted across Eggsy's eyes but the moment it was there then it was gone again.

"Is he okay?" Roxy asked quietly, still staring at Harry through the window.

"He'll be fine, physically. He was lucky Eggsy got to him in time."

"What was he even doing there?" She asked, before her eyes sparked. "Oh, God. Do you think he was coming to kill you?"

"I think he blew up the buildin' to kill me." Eggsy told her honestly.

"What?" Roxy asked incredulously.

"There were remnants of minor explosives at the crash site." Merlin admitted gently.

Eggsy was worried that such a thing would cause the young Lancelot to turn on Harry, to presume he was a monster and could never be saved, but instead of saying anything of that ilk, she merely looked confused.

"But why would he stay in the area if he planned to blow it up?"

"How should I know? Maybe he got trapped, whatever, but he's safe now, that's all that matters."

Roxy opened her mouth to respond, to scream at Eggsy that his blind adoration for the man who was trying to kill him would indeed get him killed, but a look from Merlin silenced her.

"I'm just glad you're okay." She told Eggsy.

He nodded in response, but his eyes were still trained on the brainwashed, former-agent within the room.

She had to wonder just how 'okay' he really was.

…

It was a hard feat to sneak away from a building of secret spies, and to be fair, Eggsy wasn't even certain that he'd done it successfully, but he didn't care who knew he was in there, it wasn't anyone else's business.

He pushed the door open gently and stepped inside the medical room. The unconscious Harry was lying in the same hospital bed he'd put Eggsy in not too long ago. It was like a strange, morbid symmetry.

Now that he'd had time to relax and figure out he was still alive, Eggsy had time to think about everything that was happening.

He'd thought once that if they got Harry back, alive and healthy, then they could get him back properly, but now that the man of his dreams was lying right in front of him, Eggsy found that he was scared.

He wasn't scared of Harry hurting him, they were past that now. But he was scared that maybe it wouldn't work, maybe something would happen to rip him away from him again. Eggsy didn't think he could handle anything else emotionally scarring happening in his life.

There was a scorned woman on a rampage trying to kill them and then possibly set off world war three, two of their agents lay dead and they were all trapped away in a mansion from their loved ones but this, this was real dangerous territory.

Valentine had taken everything from him, and then Valentine had come back and taken everything from him again. Now there was a small, flickering hope that he could mend his heart but it was teetering on a knife's edge and he didn't know if he'd be able to cope if he failed. If Eggsy failed him again.

Eggsy sighed loudly as he crossed the room to him, suddenly tired of all this. He looked down over Harry's unconscious form, mind taken back to the morning he'd woken beside him and watched him sleeping, then Harry had opened his eyes and smiled at him. He wished he were back in that time, that Harry, his Harry, the real Harry, was going to wake up, smile at him and fix everything.

Without control, Eggsy reached a shaking hand out, letting it hover over Harry's beating heart.

"Please come back to me." He whispered.

…

Merlin invited them all into the dining room and the moment they entered, Eggsy noticed the grim expression on his face and was instantly worried.

He sat immediately, Roxy followed and then a few moments later Percival joined, sitting at the head of the table.

Eggsy knew that Percival didn't particularly enjoy running things, and that when they were no longer target practice, he'd offer someone else the job but Eggsy reminded himself to tell Percival how much of an honest pleasure it had been to have him as a leader. He was logical, concise and decisive but with just enough emotion so it didn't make him cold. Eggsy honestly couldn't think of anyone who deserved to carry the torch Percival had created.

"Is there any news on Harry?" Percival asked the moment he'd sat down.

"I've induced a coma and locked the medical bay." Merlin said. "I know it sounds a little barbaric, but we don't know how far his loyalty to Valentine stretches."

"Not that far, I'll bet." Roxy muttered. "He's disappeared for days and she hasn't sent anyone after him."

"Well we did kinda kill half her staff." Eggsy pointed out.

"I mean-" Percival interrupted. "How is he? Is he okay? He looked pretty battered when I went to see him."

"Oh." Merlin said, looking surprised and then guilty. "He's going to be fine. At this point, I don't think there's anything he can't survive."

As Merlin began to project the brain X-rays he'd taken from Harry from his clipboard, Eggsy retreated into his own mind and considered that it was so very Harry to survive. He was tough, like a bulldozer, and he always came back from anything. It bizarrely cheered Eggsy, that a quality so intrinsicly linked with the man he cared for was still alive within him, it gave him hope that he could be saved.

"It's bad news, I'm afraid." Merlin said, gesturing to the X-ray. There was a clear view of Harry's skull and the metal plating on the left side of his skull merging seamlessly with the intact bone in his right. Then, just below the join of his jaw bone was a small, rectangular foreign body, standing out in stark contrast to the rest of him.

"Is that the chip?" Eggsy asked.

Merlin nodded. "You see how it's positioned below the cerebral cortex? It's able to send signals direct to his brain that subdue the evolved, human part that you and I have. He's only able to operate on basic instinct. He eats when he's hungry, he kills when he's told to because he has no care for human life. To be absolutely frank, this is bloody amazing technology. Imagine the wars you could have with this kind of thing in each infantryman. Like sending a bunch of Lions and Gorillas up against each other."

Eggsy rolled his eyes, of course Merlin would fawn over the advanced technology.

"You said there was bad news." Eggsy prompted, hoping sincerely that he meant it would take days to remove the chip or it would require invasive surgery. Some obstacle that they could overcome.

"I can't take it out." He admitted, looking suddenly knackered.

"What?" Eggsy asked, voice hard.

Merlin rubbed his head, taking the liberty of sitting down as he spoke as if tired from a physical weight.

"I can't hack past the self-destructive element of the chip." He explained, giving Eggsy immediate mental images of the asshole professor and his mystical exploding head. "If I try and remove it surgically without the proper coding, as in the make-up of the technology, the reverse, then it will explode."

It felt like all the oxygen had left the room and Eggsy couldn't breathe, he worried for a moment he was going to begin hyperventilating. After everything, this couldn't just be it. That they were incapable and there was nothing they could do. He couldn't believe it.

"Hear me out." Roxy said suddenly. They all turned to her but she fixed Eggsy with a sympathetic gaze. "Eggsy, I'm so sorry," she said, looking like she meant it before turning and addressing all of them. "But...there is always another option. One we don't want to think about, but one we many have to."

"What option?" Percival asked, looking genuinely confused.

"The option of killing him." Roxy said uneasily.

Eggsy closed his eyes slowly.

"I've thought about this too." Merlin said.

Eggsy's eyes shot open, rage contorting his features. "What the fuck, Merlin. What the fuck?" He looked around at them all. "No! Just, no. It's not gonna happen. I can't believe you would even say somethin' like that, I can't believe you would even think somethin' like that."

"It may be the best option for Harry." Merlin said patiently.

"How in the fuck is it the best option for Harry to kill him?" Eggsy exploded. "You and him were friends."

"If I were to end Harry's life, I'd be doing it because I love him." Merlin replied immediately, voice hard. His eyes suddenly wavered as if he'd suddenly become aware of what he'd just said, but he remained silent.

Eggsy swallowed and fell silent.

"Kingsman has to protect people from threats." Percival interjected blankly. "Now Harry is the threat. He's not Harry Hart anymore.

"But Valentine said that his amnesia is wanin'." Eggsy pressed, leaning forward on the desk as if desperate to physically get his point across. "Things will come back to him. I really believe, deep down, he's beginnin' to remember me."

"Even if he does remember you," Roxy began gently, giving Eggsy's forearm a comforting squeeze. "There's still the matter of the inhibitor chip. Harry will never feel properly. He'll never function like a normal human being."

"What about before, then?" Eggsy said testily, ripping his arm back. "Oh, come on. When Harry shot me, the bullet should've hit my heart, like it did Gawain, like Tristan, but it didn't. We all know he'd never make a mistake like that. Close range, he was stood right in front of me, he couldn't have missed. He chose not to kill me!"

"That's fucking ridiculous!" Roxy shouted. "I'm sorry but did you miss him trying to blow you up five fucking minutes ago?"

"Don't be naive, Eggsy." Percival said.

Eggsy was shocked into silence momentarily but quickly shook his head and stood.

"Fuck the inhibitor chip!" He said hotly. "I'll fix Harry myself! You know why? Because he never gave up on me, he saw something in me that no one else did. Sounds familiar, don't it?"

With that, he turned and left, banging the door loudly on his way out.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Eggsy hovered in the doorway as he noticed Roxy sitting alone in the drawing room. She was staring absent-mindedly at the unlit fireplace, twiddling a pen through her fingers.

Eggsy had felt bad for losing his temper the moment he'd stormed out of the dining room, he'd just been running on high emotions because all the hope he'd had about getting Harry back had been crushed in one fell swoop, he hadn't meant to shout at them, they were all on the same side, after all.

"Hey." He said, walking inside and sitting opposite her.

"Hey." She greeted, voice dull, still staring blankly ahead.

Eggsy felt his stomach dip and shifted in his seat. "Rox, are you okay?"

"I. Am. Fucking. Bored." She said, interjecting every word. She turned to him. "How long have we been stuck in this mansion now? I haven't spoken to my dad in days and..." She blinked suddenly. "Sorry. How are you?"

"I thought I'd really upset you." Eggsy admitted.

"Why would you upset me?" She asked, brow furrowed.

"For kickin' off in the dinin' room when Merlin showed us them X-rays." He expanded.

"Oh." She said before smiling shallowly at him. "I shouted too. I shouldn't have. And I shouldn't have said what I said about Harry."

"Nah, it's all right." Eggsy conceded. "You were just lookin' out for everyone. More than I've been doin' lately. I'm riskin' everythin' on somethin' that might already be gone."

His voice broke on the last word and his hand flew to his mouth, suddenly, Roxy was at his side and pulling him into a hug. He was glad for the embrace.

"Don't say that." She said gently. "I know it's awkward, but you were right. You have to try to get through to him, otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have saved him. When you care about someone that much, you can't just let them go. It's stupid of us to think you would agree to killing someone you..." She sighed. "Eggsy, look at me." She commanded softly.

Eggsy did.

"You love him, don't you?"

Eggsy merely stared at her, and she liked to think she got the barest nod before tears fell from his eyes and she was hugging him again.

"It's going to be okay." She promised.

"Err..."

The pair of them looked up to see Merlin stood in the doorway, hand poised as if ready to knock.

Eggsy sat up straight, desperately wiping the tears from his eyes. Merlin, embarrassed to have intruded on such a moment, blushed and looked down. "Err...Harry's awake." He quickly explained.

"How is he?" Roxy asked.

"He's fine." Merlin admitted. "Not hostile, luckily. More...indifferent."

"I've gotta see him." Eggsy said, balling his shirt sleeves in his hands and scrubbing the wetness in his eyes again before standing.

Roxy's hand shot out and stopped him.

"You can't go alone." She said, concerned.

He smiled shallowly down at her. "I've gotta try, right?" He said.

She stared at him mutely for a moment before nodding and letting go.

…

Eggsy was about to walk straight through the door of the medical bay, thoughts of indecency and privacy barely crossing his mind, until he remembered Harry chastising him for not knocking the last time he'd visited him there so he stopped outside the door and wrapped his knuckles against it.

There was no reply and he momentarily wondered if Harry had left. He reached a hand out to try the handle and it was unlocked.

Tentatively, he opened the door and stepped inside.

Harry looked up at him as he entered. He was sat perched on the end of a neatly folded bed, dressed in a double breasted bespoke suit. He almost looked exactly like his old self except for the lack of glasses and the dull brown eyes but it was enough to startle Eggsy and momentarily stop him in his tracks.

"Hello." Harry said pleasantly, shocking the poor boy further.

"Hello." Eggsy replied slowly.

Harry stood and Eggsy found himself unconsciously taking a step back, a hand shooting out for the door handle.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Harry assured him.

Eggsy shook his head. "I ain't that." He said quietly.

Harry fell silent for a moment, clearly thinking behind his eyes, before he looked openly curiously at Eggsy.

"What's your name?" He asked earnestly. "Your real name, I mean."

Though hurt, Eggsy still replied.

"My name's Eggsy." He answered.

"Eggsy." Harry repeated slowly, rolling the new, odd name over his tongue, trying desperately to recall if he'd ever heard it before but coming up blank.

"And...I'm Harry. I think. You...said it before, and I remembered. I think." He even looked confused at his own thought process and it truly broke the already shattered pieces of Eggsy's heart.

"Your name is Harry Hart." He told him.

Harry nodded.

"And you and I knew each other, didn't we?" He asked rhetorically.

Eggsy looked away and didn't answer.

Harry pressed on.

"Merlin told me what happened at the garage," he explained before taking a deep breath. "I know you." He admitted. "I know that you're important somehow." His forehead creased in confusion as he spoke. "But I tried to kill you, three times now. Why would you save me?"

It was the word 'important' sparking something inside of Eggsy, and the innocence in asking why he would save him that drove Eggsy to be honest. Not just with Harry, but with himself.

"Because I love you." Was all he said before he surged forward, wrapping an arm around Harry's neck and yanking him close, capturing Harry's lips with his own and letting out a surprised, pained little moan all in one movement.

Harry found himself kissing him back, surprised at the warmth and insistent passion in every slide of their lips, every meeting of their tongues. He drank in Eggsy's moans, needing them like air. His hands were just beginning to settle on Eggsy's hips when the young agent quickly pulled away, turning and rushing from the room without looking back.

But Harry didn't have time to process his quick exit because he was too busy staggering back, unwillingly bombarded with images of the same person, of  _Eggsy,_ lying naked beneath him and arching his back, sweat pooling on his forehead and eyes clenched closed in blissful agony, almost certainly as if they were  _sleeping together._

But then the image changed and warped, then he was sat opposite him, chatting normally...staring down at his form tied to train track...

Harry sat back on the bed, blinking rapidly as image after image came soaring in front of him. He remembered training, he remembered becoming Galahad and then he heard a gunshot in his mind, point-blank range, causing genuine throbbing pain in the left side of his face. He clutched at his face as he cried out, then simply cried as his memory restored and reset itself. It hurt.

…

Roxy sent a sideways glance to Merlin as they walked.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" She asked.

Merlin nodded.

"I'm sure. We need to find a way to stop Valentine and we have one very reliable source in this building we need to utilise. We need to find out what he knows."

Roxy nodded, knowing he was right but still feeling uneasy as she sent a glance back to Eggsy.

He was trailing a good foot behind the group in the corridor, looking uneasy and staring at his feet. He became aware of Roxy in his periphery glancing back and him and knew she thought he was scared about facing Harry but in actuality, the reason he didn't want to go was because he felt guilty. But not just guilty; completely shit. He knew he shouldn't have kissed Harry when he did, that it wasn't right and he'd done it for selfish reasons but all it had done was destroy him more. Harry had kissed him back, passionately, and Eggsy felt like it should have sparked some form of hope inside of him that he could be saved but all it did was make him feel terrible. It reminded him, like a punch to the gut, of everything he'd had and everything he would never get back. He felt like he should have left well enough alone.

He also had no idea what Harry was going to say to him, and in front of everyone else as well, and was terrified to find out.

Percival knocked softly on the door of the medical bay before opening it and allowing everyone entrance before himself.

Harry was on his feet, bent over and examining some of the medical equipment in the room, he looked up as they entered, hands behind his back.

"Good morning, Harry." Percival greeted as he shut the door behind him.

"Good morning, Percival." Harry replied easily.

Shocked, Percival froze. "You remember your name?" He asked. "You remember  _your_ name?"

Harry nodded, looking vaguely amused. "Yes. I'm fairly certain my memory is restored now." As if to prove it, he inclined his head to Roxy.

"Roxanne Morton, you successfully completed training for Lancelot. Percival, Merlin, I wont disclose your identities for the sake of privacy but we've worked together for twenty five years. Percival, you saved my life in a Korean car-jacking; Merlin; you attended my fathers funeral for moral support."

The Kingsman gaped at him and Eggsy stared at the floor, heavily aware that Harry hadn't included any information about him. Although he supposed there wasn't much he could say without revealing their relationship to the rest of them, but he couldn't fathom why Harry would suddenly want to protect him after everything that had happened between them.

"Fascinating." Merlin said, once he'd closed his mouth. "Do you have any idea what brought this on?"

Eggsy looked up just in time to see Harry's gaze linger on him and Eggsy realised exactly what had happened, and exactly what part he'd played in restoring Harry's memories.

His mouth opened in shock and he immediately looked at the floor again. Harry, having apparently decided to preserve his dignity, merely replied; "I'm unsure."

"How are you feeling?" Roxy asked boldly.

"I don't feel anything." Harry replied simply.

Eggsy swallowed and turned away, not wanting everyone to see his reaction. Roxy gave him a quick glance before she pressed on.

"But how can you not feel anything if you can remember him?" She asked Harry, voice an odd mixture of clipped anger and sympathetic confusion.

"Well, I've been trying to get my own head around it all night." Harry began conversationally, as if it were somehow an interesting scientific method. "For example, I remember Merlin being my friend, and I remember caring deeply for him but I have none of those feelings now. I know I should care for morals and human life..." He continued easily, as if he'd not dropped a bombshell right on Merlin's head. "...But I don't anymore." He suddenly tilted his head. "I presume it's occurred to you to kill me."

"We need your help." Merlin steamrollered, brow furrowed and clearly hurt.

"With what?" Harry asked.

Eggsy turned back to them suddenly, brave-faced and arms crossed, he fixed Harry with a professional, guarded look. "We need to kill Valentine." He told him.

There was barely a beat before Harry replied; "okay. What did you have in mind?"

"I do have one idea." Merlin voiced, causing the rest of them to look at him.

"You do?" Percival asked.

"It's not pretty." Merlin responded.

"When is anythin' we do 'pretty'?" Eggsy asked. He turned his head to see Harry looking straight at him and found his voice dying in his throat.

"Maybe we should move this to a more comfortable setting." Percival voiced, noting the uneasy exchange between the pair of them.

"Yes, please." Roxy said immediately, turning and heading to the door. "It's freezing in here."

She was out of the medical bay before anyone had a chance to say anything else.

Merlin and Percival gave each other a confused look before Percival turned to Eggsy.

"We'll reconvene in the drawing room, whenever you're ready." He said and then they left, leaving Eggsy and Harry alone in the room.

_Bastards._ Eggsy cursed them as he eyed the door. He knew what they were trying to do, but figured they may have taken a slightly different course of action had they known the very recent intimacy the two had just shared.

Part of Eggsy just wanted to bolt after them but he supposed if Harry had ever taught him anything then it was manners.

He turned to see the man was staring simply at him, hands clasped gently in front of him.

Eggsy's eyes travelled over his form for a moment, and the stiff way he seemed to be holding himself, before he spoke.

"How are you feeling?" He asked before shaking his head. "I don't mean like  _that,_ emotions an' all. I mean, are you in pain?"

"A little." Harry admitted honestly. "Having a roof fall on you smarts, rather. But it was my own fault."

Eggsy found himself shaking his head. "It weren't  _your_ fault." He said. "It was her fault, she did this to you. I know you don't know this but you were, are, a really great guy, Harry."

"We were together." He said bluntly.

Eggsy actually, surprising, found himself smiling shyly. "We were half-together. We were nearly together, we had...we had a future."

Harry looked at the floor and there was no way Eggsy could possibly fathom what he was thinking.

He felt his mouth go dry.

"I'm sorry for kissin' you."

Harry glanced up, catching the guilty look on his face.

"Eggsy..." He began, and that already killed the young agent. Hearing Harry use his name with familiarity. He thought  _that_ had killed him, but then Harry carried on. "...If you don't want to talk about what happened yesterday, we don't have to. I'm not going to pressurise you into that, I...feel...as though I don't have the right, considering I've tried to kill you..." Eggsy nodded. "...But please don't apologise for kissing me."

Eggsy's head snapped up to him, Harry was still staring with his dull brown eyes. They looked at each other for the longest moment and Eggsy was certain that they were communicating, that _something_ was happening. Harry had kissed him back, after all.

Then Harry moved away, to the door, pulling it open and standing aside.

"We should probably meet with the others. After you." He said.

Eggsy passed through the door, cautious not to get too close as he didn't trust his body around Harry. Especially with what he'd just said. He felt the electricity crackle between them as he passed and held his breath.

He tried to keep out of step with him as they walked to the drawing room, even though there was nothing he wanted more than to talk to him, to be with him, he wished they had the privacy of Harry's home or one of the empty rooms, not in the bloody corridors with people expecting them and Merlin's cameras everywhere.

But after a moment of walking in silence, Eggsy noticed Harry overtake him, only slightly, and then he realised that he was following him. Or rather, Harry was leading the way.

Eggsy couldn't stop a small smile spreading across his lips as he watched Harry's back. Roxy was right, he had to try and get through to him, Harry was in there somewhere.

Love and perseverance were stronger forces than chips and coding.

Harry put his hand out to the varnished door knob to the drawing room and Eggsy jogged to reach him, pressing one hand against his shoulder to still him while his other covered Harry's hand on the knob, squeezing gently.

Harry regarded the intimate contact wearily before his dark eyes met Eggsy's.

"I'm not gonna give up on you." Was all the younger agent said before he turned the knob and let go of Harry's hand, walking into the room as if nothing had just occurred between them.

Harry watched him, remembering why he'd recruited him in the first place. And he was also fairly certain why he'd let the boy into his heart in the first place.

"Can I offer anyone a drink?" Percival asked, producing a decanter of scotch.

"No, thank you." Harry replied.

"Body's a temple." Merlin muttered as Harry sat.

"Well, half of it is metal and half of it is butterfly stitches." Harry replied.

Merlin nodded. "So you're still sarcastic as fuck?"

"Is sarcasm an emotion?" Harry asked.

"It is for you."

Percival cleared his throat. "Anyway..." He interrupted. Roxy sent Eggsy a bewildered look and he merely shrugged back. So it wasn't just him wishing his friend back.

"Right." Merlin cleared his throat and stood up. "Like I said, it's a little morbid but Harry really inspired me when he tried to blow up Eggsy."

Eggsy pulled a face and Merlin pursed his lips.

"Okay, that came out wrong, what I mean is that, presumably, Valentine has explosives. So we could destroy the entire base, with all of their work including her, and all of her soldiers. If we're incapable of getting rid of the inhibitor chips and they're loyal to her then we can't do much."

Eggsy looked away. He hated being the one behind the decisions concerning collateral damage. He wished Percival would just tell him what to do but supposed they all had to take responsibility now.

Harry, as blasé and indifferent as always, merely nodded.

"The explosives in the base are code-operated, much like everything there, but I can activate them if we go back. I'd say there's enough there to take the base out. Considering the industrialisation it's undergone. I never paid much heed to the under belly but I'd put money on there being flammable gases inside."

"That's freakin' morbid." Eggsy voiced under his breath. But the way Harry inclined his head to him, Eggsy knew that he'd heard him.

…

Merlin piloted the jet, Roxy and Percival were sat on separate seats in the fuselage and Eggsy stole to the galley and pulled out his phone.

"Hey Mum." He greeted when she answered, forcing himself to sound cheery.

" _Hey sweetheart, I was hoping I'd hear from you soon. How's everything going?"_

Eggsy found himself wishing that he could tell her about the nightmarish few days he'd had but instead swallowed all of it away.

"Yeah, great. Well interestin'. I'm just callin' 'cause I think I might be home in a few days."

" _Oh that's great, babe."_

"Yeah. Is Daisy okay?" He tried to keep the worry from his voice.

" _Yeah, she's fine. Misses you, though."_

Eggsy laughed with his mother, feeling a lump in his throat and forcing it down.

"Well, I gotta go. Love you, and see you soon."

" _Love you too, sweetheart."_

Eggsy hung up quickly, but before he could allow himself to get worked up, he swivelled on his feet to see that Harry had joined him in the galley.

The former-Galahad looked suddenly uneasy, as if intruding on a private moment.

The pair remained silent and stared at the floor instead of each other for a long, awkward moment.

"I'm sorry." Harry said finally, looking at him. "I...think I'm making Percival and Lancelot uncomfortable."

Eggsy nodded, stashing his phone into the pocket of his suit trousers and looking back at him.

"Well, yeah...they..."

"Think I should be killed?" Harry supplied easily and Eggsy blushed.

"Well, I dunno about that, but don't worry, I ain't gonna let that happen."

"Because you're never giving up on me." Harry declared conversationally, but it sounded more accusing than questioning. Eggsy found his eyes narrowing.

"Don't make me feel like an idiot." He pressed. "Someone's gotta look after you."

"I don't want you to waste your time." Harry admitted bluntly.

"I..." Eggsy began, unconsciously taking a step forward before his words died in his throat and he apprehended the man in front of him. "There must be some way for you to feel again." He continued, sounding suddenly desperate. "Everyone can be saved. If you can adapt and learn, then you can transform. You taught me that."

"Maybe not everyone." Harry said immediately, and Eggsy felt his stomach sink.

The hardest part was Harry being in complete defiance, if only Harry wanted his help, then the task before him would be so much easier. But then at the same time, so much worse if nothing could be done.

Eggsy reasoned that he should be grateful that Harry was content with his lot but it wasn't enough for him, he didn't care how selfish it was but Harry, the real Harry who was lost in there somewhere, wouldn't want this for himself.

Eggsy couldn't help feeling like he was screaming out behind those dull brown eyes for Eggsy's help but he just couldn't hear him.

"Don't you feel anything for me?" Eggsy found himself asking, stepping forward to Harry and reaching a hand out. Harry took it in his own and looked quizzically up at Eggsy. "Now that you remember what we meant to each other."

Harry held his hand for a moment before dropping it suddenly. "I don't." He said.

"But...you kissed me." Eggsy said, confused. Aware that the others were mere metres away and could probably hear everything he was saying.

Harry looked like he was desperately searching for a reply before he said; "it was pleasant."

Eggsy couldn't help but feel like Harry was merely trying to make him feel better rather than supplying any honest answer.

"All right," Eggsy began quickly, trying to subdue the pain in his chest whilst at the same time going red with embarrassment. "Try to remember some of the ways you did feel. How did you feel about me before?"

Harry looked at Eggsy's hopeful face and searched desperately in his memory for any kind of emotion he'd had for the boy, he didn't particularly know why he was playing this ridiculous game with him but he didn't really know much when it came to Eggsy.

He remembered the times before they'd begun to become romantically involved, the time they'd spent together getting to know each other. Harry remembered training Eggsy, watching him change and transform into the competent agent stood before him.

"I remember being proud of you." He finally supplied.

_'He was never proud of me'_ , that's what Eggsy had said once. That was what Eggsy had genuinely believed once, because how could Harry be proud of the useless estate kid who'd failed him, and watching this poor replica staring at him emotionlessly after dropping such a bombshell, knowing that he'd made Harry proud just made things worse. He wasn't sure if anything could make things better at this point.

"You fucking liar." He found himself spitting at Harry.

Harry's brow furrowed. "I'm not lying to you, I was genuinely proud."

Eggsy swallowed heavily before shaking his head. That wasn't what he was lying about, it was that Eggsy had lost him, when Harry had promised that he never would.

Harry stared unblinkingly as Eggsy had this thought process, and after a moment seemed to realise he wasn't going to get any kind of response.

Recognising a lost cause when he saw one, Harry turned and left, just missing the tear dripping down Eggsy's left cheek.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey guys, I realise it's been an eternity since I've updated this fic but I didn't feel like my heart was really in it before. But I watched Kingsman again a few days ago and with the sequel coming out, my love for Hartwin has been renewed and I thought I'd finish this. Hope you guys enjoy xxx

"You can't land on the same airstrip you did last time." Harry said, joining Merlin in the cockpit and sitting in the first officer's chair with ease.

Merlin blinked once, shocked at the sudden sense memory the action gave him. Harry would always collapse into the first officer's seat without warning, declaring his boredom on a flight to Russia or a complaint of the hangover he had from the two of them getting mortal from the night before. And now, using the same body language was a stranger. It was one of the more bizarre things Merlin had experienced in this job.

"Why not?" Merlin asked, shaking his feelings aside. "We took out a couple dozen guards the last time we were there. They should be severally understaffed, it shouldn't be a problem."

"That may be the case, but since your little impromptu visit last time, Valentine set up motion sensors placed in strategic spots in the side of the mountain. Any jet without the authorisation code gets shot down, no guards needed."

"Oh, then how do we land?" Merlin asked.

"There's a cave in the mountain, about 40 feet up. We should avoid the sensors and you'll be able to land the plane."

Merlin side-eyed him as much as possible while still maintaining his flight path.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Nothing." Merlin said after a moment, gaze returning to the front. "Nothing at all."

Merlin managed to squeeze the jet into the small but manageable cave Harry had directed him to, and allowed the former-Galahad to explain why they was avoiding the perfectly adequate landing strip below.

"How are we supposed to get down the mountain without setting the sensors off then?" Asked Eggsy.

"They'll be programmed to sense air craft," Merlin pointed out, "not people daft enough to abseil down a goddamn mountain." He finished dryly, fetching the high-tech ropes and ties from the back of the jet needed to abseil, luckily for them, Kingsman were always prepared.

"I apologise." Said Harry, "but it stops us getting shot out of the sky."

…

All five of them exited the plane one by one, precariously using pick axes to help navigate the mountainside and secure themselves to the wall as they secured their ties to the wing of the jet. Eggsy, as preoccupied with Harry as he was, noticed Roxy's heavy breathing and her painful clutch on his arm and turned to her, shivering from the snow on the mountainside.

"Hey, it's all right, it ain't that far." He said soothingly.

"Thanks." She said, smiling gratefully at him. "I'm Lancelot, I should be over this by now."

"Don't be daft, you sod." Eggsy grinned affectionately. "Don't tell no one, but I'm shit scared of spiders."

"Really?" Roxy said, laughing.

Eggsy laughed too, glad he had cheered her, and the pair, along with Merlin, Percival, and Harry, began abseiling slowly down the mountainside. It didn't take long for them to reach the landing strip they'd landed at before. The strip, luckily, was completely deserted. Apparently Valentine, having installed her swanky sensors, didn't see the need to keep any guards out there, much to the Kingsman advantage. They each unhooked themselves from their tethers and Merlin gathered them in a bundle and tied them off while Eggsy congratulated Roxy on her successful decent.

Harry turned to them all. "Wait here, try to stay out of sight while I go inside and disarm the exterior security system." Without even checking for their approval, he strode off inside the mountain, as cold and emotionless as the snow-covered stone around him.

As Eggsy adjusted his jumpsuit, Percival walked past him and joined Merlin as he tied their ropes to a jutting out piece of rock from the mountain so they could reclimb back to the jet once they were done. Percival began to speak quietly to Merlin, probably unaware that they were speaking loud enough for Eggsy to hear. The young Galahad immediately went to move away and give the two friends some privacy until he heard the subject matter and couldn't help but linger.

"…I mean, why is he even doing this, helping us?" Percival was saying in hushed tones. "What if Harry's still loyal to Valentine and this is just one big trap we've walked into, and dragged Roxy into as well. And Eggsy."

"I'm not sure." Merlin replied, sounding troubled. "It's just hard not to instinctively trust him, you know? Plus, I don't know, the only thing I can think of is that, you know, he might not care for us anymore, but he doesn't have any reason to hate us. But with his memory returned, he might be able to appreciate all that Valentine has taken from him. He might want revenge of his own."

Eggsy pondered that for a moment. It never really occurred to him why Harry was helping them take down Valentine. He'd just assumed the emotionless Harry had done it out of boredom or something akin to that, it never occurred to him that Harry might have an agenda of his own, that he might want to kill them all. Or maybe, just maybe, Merlin was right and he'd realised, when Eggsy had kissed him, that they might have had a future together and Valentine had taken that away, and he was taking revenge for the happiness they might have had.

Harry hurried out onto the airstrip not a few moments later, successfully interrupting his reverie. Eggsy found himself just staring at the man he loved instead of listening to the instructions he was giving him. He shook his head to clear it, forcing himself to remember that he was on a mission, again saving the world from Valentine, saving his mum and his sister and everyone he loved and maybe, just maybe, saving Harry.

They followed Harry into the base, passing through the rock-walled cells. At the first Y-Junction they reached in the corridors, there were two guards leant against the wall chatting idling so they stole silently down the other corridor. One of the guards, however, registered a movement in the corner of his eye. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd seen, but refused to let it go when half of his colleagues had just been butchered. He pulled his walkie talkie from his belt and radioed in.

…

It wasn't long before the Kingsmen reached a large metal corridor deep in the recesses of the base. Harry held his hand up to stop them and they all skidded to a halt.

Harry turned to them, and if he'd had any emotion in his soul, he would have looked guilty.

"I don't have security access to get through this door," he explained, emotionless as ever, "the explosives are all in there. It's a storage facility. Only Valentine has access to this room, it's a doomsday alternative should anyone discover her plans."

"Hold on." Merlin said, more to himself than to anyone else whilst fumbling in his jumpsuit. After a second he took out a 7" tablet and began tapping furiously at the touchscreen. He reached out with his unpreoccupied hand. "Give me your key card." He said authoritatively. Harry immediately reached into his pocket and handed over the key card which granted him access to Valentine's facility. He studied the numbers on the card for a moment before he was back on the tablet. After about five minutes continuous work, he spoke:

"Okay, go to the keypad. Ignore the slot, put 567476927392.99 into the keypad, with the new firewalls I've installed, it should override the system."

Harry dutifully walked over to the keypad by the metal door and typed the long number in without having to be told twice. The keypad beeped and the door slid open easily for them.

Eggsy walloped Merlin on the back for his good work before all of them walked into the room onto an elevated walkway that extended about twenty feet from the doorway, and below them was row upon row of short-range explosives. Enough to level a small country let alone a mountain base.

"Bloody hell." Roxy breathed out.

They all stared out over the explosives for the longest time, just in awe of what that kind of fire power could do. Eggsy, however, was the only one to notice the change in Harry's shoulders. The way they slumped, in exactly the way they always did when he had bad news to give. Exactly the same way they had done when he'd told Eggsy he had to go to Kentucky, and leave him…

"Harry." Eggsy said, concern obvious in his voice as all eyes were suddenly trained on the former Kingsman. Harry finally turned to them, expression hard.

"You all need to go." He said, expression hard.

"What?" Percival asked immediately.

"I needed Merlin to get into the room. That's why I didn't come alone. But you need to go now, for your own sakes."

"Not until you give us an answer why." Merlin said rather firmly, stepping forward.

Harry paused for a moment before he said: "the explosives are operated by biometrics."

Eggsy suddenly remembered the original Valentine, and them having to make sure his hand stayed off of the controls so that his psycho sim cards didn't work. What Harry was really saying was, that the behemoth of explosives beneath them were hand-operated, so the only way to set them off was too…

An alarm sounded throughout the base, almost deafening Eggsy in its intensity. Before he could adjust his ear drums, four or five of the classic guards had swarmed outside of the room. Roxy, Merlin and Percival immediately bolted from the walkway and out of the storage unit, sending punches and gunshots to the guards that dared to stand in their way.

Eggsy, however, remained on the walkway, remained staring at Harry. He couldn't look away.

"You have to go." Harry said, something close to desperation in his voice as his eyes looked at Eggsy just like they used to.

Eggsy understood immediately what Harry was suggesting. That he should die setting off the explosives, giving them the chance to escape, to live.

The memory of Percival and Merlin's earlier conversation suddenly swarmed Eggsy's mind, and he spat the question at Harry without thinking.

"Why are you doing this? Just tell me, why are you helping us, why are you killing Valentine, why are you doing this?"

"I'm doing this for you."

Eggsy almost staggered back in shock.

"But why?" He asked, mouth dry.

"Because I remember all the potential you had in you." Harry said. "I remember all I wanted for you, I remember our future, Eggsy. You can still have it, even though I can't."

"But…" Began Eggsy, gesturing vaguely to the explosives below. "You'll get caught in the blast!"

"I have no regard for my own life." Harry said simply and Eggsy felt his blood boil in his veins, no one was allowed to disregard Harry's life, let alone Harry himself.

"But I do!" He all but shouted, and then more desperately: "you can't leave me again. You can't."

Harry's eyes turned hard and he suddenly looked like a stranger. "I never came back, Eggsy."

And with that, a hand connected with Eggsy's chest and he was shoved out of the explosives room and the door was shut behind him.

Among the sirens, the fighting and his total heartbreak, Eggsy vaguely registered Roxy's voice through the darkness of his mind.

"Eggsy, please, we need to go. More guards are coming, and there's enough explosives in this building to level the mountain. Please, Eggsy, please."

Eggsy, still numb to the world around him, allowed himself to be dragged away by Roxy as he left Harry behind, as he left all of his hopes and dreams and love behind.

…

Harry readied himself for the descent from the walkway to the explosives, so ready to end this. To end Valentine but also himself, the sick, twisted version of himself that he'd become. Eggsy would have a future, that's all Harry cared about, or at least all the real Harry would have cared about.

He heard the whirring of the doorway and rolled his eyes, certain that the young Galahad was refusing to leave him behind. He remembered Eggsy's fiery nature very well, it was probably one of the reasons he'd fallen in love with him.

Still, he couldn't feel that love now and turned on his heel, ready to tell him to leave immediately but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Valerie Valentine stood in the doorway, flanked by two of her few remaining guards, both wielding AK-47s.

"Welcome back, Agent." She said.

…

Eggsy yelped in shock as a fist enclosed around his collar and yanked him back, he was ready to send a kick out to whoever had caught him until he realised that it was Percival who had grabbed him and yanked him around a corner in the corridor. Merlin and Roxy immediately followed and pressed themselves against the wall, trying to make themselves as small as possible. Once Percival had released his collar, Eggsy sent a questioning look in his direction and Percival merely replied by pressing a finger to his lips.

Quiet as a mouse, Eggsy peered around the corner and saw the back of Valentine and two guards stood in the reopened doorway of the explosives storage room.

"What do you see?" Asked Merlin in a stage whisper.

Eggsy watched in horror as Harry was escorted out of the room, a guard was holding his arm but he was otherwise co-operating calmly. Valentine followed them, she was saying something that Eggsy couldn't hear, before they were all down the corridor and out of sight.

"They've got Harry." He told them in a normal voice. "Valentine just took him away."

"Do you think he set off the explosives yet?" Roxy asked, a note of panic in her voice.

"I doubt it." Said Merlin, shaking his head. "Valentine would have noticed. How did she know we were in there?"

"What if Harry tells her we're here?"

"What if…?"

"He won't." Eggsy cut across immediately, remembering exactly what Harry had told him in the explosives storage room not five minutes before. "No, I think he's protectin' us, but now he's in trouble."

"We can't leave him." Roxy said decisively, earning a few surprised stares from the others. "He was going to die for us." She continued. "We can't leave him with Valentine."

Eggsy looked to Percival as their leader and the Senior Kingsman nodded in agreement. "Good work, Lancelot." He said. "We'll follow, regain Harry and then re-examine the plan."

The four of them stole silently through the base, guns aloft, ready and waiting for guards to jump out at them like they were in some kind of fun house at the fair. Eggsy's heart was beating so loudly in his chest he was surprised the others couldn't hear it. He'd come so close to losing Harry forever, but fate had saved him again. He wasn't sure if it was the universe's way of telling Eggsy not to give up on Harry, or whether it was just some sick joke.

They reached a more formal part of the base, the corridors became less sterile and metal and instead were carpeted and clean and light. A guard stood outside one of the doors and Merlin walked behind him, wrapping his arm around his throat and squeezing until the guard went limp in his arms, not a sound was made.

Merlin opened the door, curious as to what the guard was guarding, and was surprised to find a tech lab on the other side. He paused for a moment, aware that he still had Harry's security card in his pocket, and with the information in that micro-chip, maybe, just maybe he could access…

"Merlin!" Eggsy said, getting the Scotsman's attention. "Come on, we gotta go."

"Go on." Merlin said, more to Percival than to the rest of them. "I'll catch up."

Percival, unaware of Merlin's plan but aware of his genius, nodded mutely and instructed the other two to follow him. Eggsy did so, but sent a glance back to see the tech wizard disappearing into the room the guard had just been guarding and frowned with confusion.

They continued to navigate the surprisingly small base until they came upon the same electronics laboratory and former ballroom they had seen before, and above it was Valentine's office. Inside was Valentine, Harry and two guards. One of the guards immediately spotted them stood below and raised his AK-47. The gunshot whistled through the glass, shattering it and connecting with Percival's chest and bouncing off of his bulletproof jumpsuit. Percival staggered back from the impact and Eggsy shot off, scaling the stairs two at a time. He kicked the door down and headshotted one of the guards and punched the other directly in the face. Roxy appeared behind him and shot the remaining guard once, twice, three times in the chest until he keeled and then she turned the gun on Valentine and stilled.

Eggsy didn't bother to stick around to see Valentine's reaction, instead he strode to the shattered window and looked down, seeing Percival on the floor.

"Percival, are you all right?" He called out.

"Yes, fine. Is Valentine dead?" He called back.

Eggsy turned back to see Roxy still training her gun on the weary Valentine. Harry was uncommonly still.

"For now." He called back.

As Percival got to his feet, Eggsy turned back to the room and it was only then that he noticed the blood bubbling at Harry's lips.

"Holy shit, Harry, are you okay?" Eggsy surged forward and placed a hand on Harry's chin, forcing his face to his. He seemed otherwise unharmed, except for a bruise blossoming on his cheek under his scar from where he'd apparently been punched.

"I'm fine, Eggsy." Harry said quietly. "I didn't get to the explosives in time, I'm sorry."

Eggsy couldn't help a sad smile as he looked into those dull eyes. "No, you're not." He said honestly. "You can't be."

Eggsy moved away from Harry as Percival entered the room, winded but otherwise okay.

"So," Percival said, apprehending the unnerved Valentine with a gun aimed at her face. "What do we do with you?"

Valentine smiled. "Oh, I've got an idea."

Twenty or thirty armed guards stormed through the laboratory and paused, aiming their guns directly at the shattered window of the office.

"Oh, shit." Said Roxy, before she slowly lowered the gun from Valentine's face.

"Don't suppose you were thinkin' of lettin' us go?" Eggsy asked rather cheekily, hoping if his words didn't get them out of this then his boyish charm just might.

But, of course, Valentine didn't have a heart.

"I don't think so, Galahad. Do you?"

_"Eggsy!"_

Eggsy almost recoiled as Merlin's voice came through on his glasses feed.

_"Ask Harry how long it takes for those explosives to detonate."_

"Harry, how long does it take those bombs to detonate?"

Roxy and Percival stared at him, perturbed, but Harry merely answered.

"About thirty seconds."

_"Oh fuck, Eggsy…fucking run!"_

"RUN!" Eggsy screamed at the top of his lungs.

Harry immediately sent an elbow into Valentine's ribs, sending her down and then the guards outside began to fire. Percival took two out immediately, one with a headshot and one through the neck, before Eggsy grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him down the steps. The four of them ran, not bothering to fight back, just doing their best to avoid the bullets that were bouncing off of their bullet proof jumpsuits, leaving layers of damaged skin beneath. A bullet tore across Roxy's cheek and she cried out but kept running, and Eggsy felt Harry's hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward. They broke the electronics lab and ran through the carpeted corridors and down back to the rock corridors just in time to see Merlin running from the electronics room Harry had been captured in.

"Run!" He roared again, and the five of them ran and ran until they were in the rock corridors, nearing the exit, they could see the landing strip, they could see the sunlight.

A supersonic BOOM sounded and rock and shrapnel fell all around them, the walls began to crack as they broke daylight, sending them all sprawling and leaving a deep crack in the airstrip. When they glanced back inside, a raging fire was all that greeted them.

They all scrambled to their feet and pushed on, reaching the tied-off ropes and clambered up, finally stopping and collapsing onto the wing of the jet. They were unable to do anything but watch as the crashing sounds continued and the jutting-out airstrip cracked and fell from the mountain, hitting the ground far below with earth-shattering force. The four of them were breathing heavily, aware that if they'd remained on that landing strip for just five seconds more, they'd be at the bottom of the mountain, too.

They climbed into the jet and Merlin's hands were still shaking when he sat down in the pilot's seat. Harry stayed with Merlin while Percival took Roxy to the back to care for the wound on her cheek.

Eggsy glanced out of one of the windows and saw a smouldering hole in the mountain where the base used to be as it slowly receded into the distance. He sincerely hoped that he'd never have to see that mountain again.

He squeezed Roxy's shoulder affectionately before joining Merlin and Harry in the cockpit.

"Merlin," Eggsy began, breathing still ragged and voice rough. "That was a shit plan."

"Oh, that wasn't a plan." Merlin grinned. "It was just an afterthought. After I was done in the tech lab I thought, hey, let's blow the shit out of this place."

"What were you doin' in the tech lab?" Eggsy asked. "What was so damn important?"

"This." Merlin said simply, digging in his pocket and pulling out a small memory stick.

"What's on it?" Eggsy asked.

"The codes I need to hack past the defences in the inhibitor chip." His face went surprisingly serious. "I can take it out now."

"Why would you do that?" Harry asked incredulously, before Eggsy could even speak. "You risked your life, all of our lives, just for that."

"You're my best friend." Said Merlin stiffly. "And I was always going to do whatever I could to get you back. Whether you like it or not. Besides, I need you, we have plans."

"What plans?"

"When we die, I'm going to need someone to get drunk with in hell."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The chapter we've all been waiting for! **Evil cackles!**

"No." Harry said resolutely, arms crossed over his body tightly, as if protecting himself more than the black Kevlar he was wearing ever could. His eyes were firm and stern, the large scar on his face was even more prominent with the lack of glasses on his face; he almost looked like a stranger.

"Harry, please." Merlin said, rubbing his eyes like he was the most exhausted he'd been in his life. "Do you know what I went through to get these damn authorisation codes?"

"I didn't ask you to do that. You nearly killed us all."

"You did not just say that…"

"Guys, guys." Roxy said bravely, getting between two seasoned Kingsman Agents, and holding her hands up. "This isn't helping."

There was silence for a long moment.

"I don't want to do it." Harry said quietly.

"No one's going to make you, Harry." Percival told him. "We just urge you to consider the…um, the  _benefits_ of having your inhibitor chip taken out."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that we can study it and make sure nothing like this ever happens again. You know, if Valerie Valentine survived, or had other people working on similar things, it's not out of the realm of possibility."

Harry paused in thought for a moment, shock on his face as he considered a reason to have his chip removed that didn't directly involve him and his wellbeing.

Eggsy put his face in his hands without realising that, although Percival may never know Harry in the ways Eggsy knew him, he still knew Harry better than Eggsy did. More than that, he knew battle-minded Harry, he knew how to appeal to his friend's logical side rather than his emotional side.

"I'll think about it." Harry said stiffly.

Percival conceded. "That's all I ask."

"Come on." Merlin said. "I think we all need a drink, and some rest. This is still a victory, Valentine's base has been destroyed and she herself is presumed dead."

All in agreement, they moved to the door of the medical bay to move to the more comfortable part of the Kingsman mansion. Harry, however, perched on the end of the bed and looked at the floor.

"Eggsy, come on." Roxy said quietly.

"I'm gonna stay here for a bit, Rox." He said gently.

Roxy's eyes flickered to Harry and she hesitated for a moment, still uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Eggsy alone with Harry, but after a moment she nodded and hugged him.

"Come up when you're ready." She said.

"Thanks, Rox." Eggsy said, and then she was out the door and gone, and it was just them.

Harry didn't even acknowledge that Eggsy had remained in the medical bay with him until Eggsy crossed the room and stood in front of him, then Harry's gaze lifted and met his. Eggsy was expecting resignation, or even fear but was again met with the nothingness that the inhibitor chip guaranteed. He didn't know why he kept expecting anything else.

"I know you're just going to try and convince me to have the inhibitor chip removed." Harry said, eyes hitting the floor again. "You're wasting your breath. You should go upstairs and enjoy time with your friends."

_Your_ friends.

"They were your friends before they were mine." Eggsy said. "You can have 'em back." He hesitated. "You can have us all back. In, whatever capacity, you…want."

Harry looked at him again and Eggsy felt his cheeks go red.

"There's no point." He finally said.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I'd be going back to nothing. I have nothing in this world anymore, the last thing I need to do is feel bad about that. I'm just doing the best I can with what I have, you taught me that once."

"Yeah, and you taught me that we can be more than what we are."

Eggsy was almost annoyed, annoyed at the fact that Harry was trashing the life lesson Eggsy had held so dear for so long, the lesson that had given him and his family everything in life.

He forced his anger down and stuck his hand out absurdly. Harry just stared at it.

"Take it." Eggsy said, perhaps more forcefully than he had meant to. But it seemed to force Harry to put his hand in his.

Eggsy gripped his hand and pulled him to his feet, manoeuvring him around to the mirror in the medical bay. Their own reflections stared back at them and the way they were stood so close, with their hands clasped, they looked like they belonged together.

"What is the purpose of this?" Harry asked.

"What do you see?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Eggsy…"

"Because I see a man with potential." Eggsy rolled on bravely, a smile working its way onto his face. "Someone, who, with the right help, can transform."

"That's not what I said."

"It's close enough." Eggsy said, whirling them so that they were facing each other, but he messed up, they were too close. Eggsy was pressed against Harry, he could smell his musk, feel his warm breath on his lips.

Harry shocked him by pushing him away, by creating a distance between them. It took Eggsy a moment to gather himself.

"What if I didn't?" Harry asked emotionlessly. "What if I chose to stay this way? Would you stay with me? Would you love me?"

Eggsy frowned and backed off a little more, stung by the question and the bluntness in which it was delivered.

"What kind of question is that?" He asked.

"Because, Eggsy, you need to understand that if I have this chip removed…things will never be like they were. I'm never going to be the man I used to be."

"I don't expect you to be, Harry. You never could be."

"So, what' the point, then?"

Eggsy couldn't keep his anger down this time, it overflowed from his stomach and erupted out of his mouth.

"I've fought for you every step of the way." Eggsy exploded, causing Harry to take a surprised jolt back. "If you have any strength left in you, if anything of the man you used to be is left, you'll fight for me. You owe me that."

Harry couldn't feel anything, that part of his brain was cut off from him, leaving him with just the animal side, with his animal feelings and his animal cravings…and all he could think in that moment, despite the raw emotion in the room, was just how  _hot_ Eggsy looked.

Without caring about the consequences, Harry surged forwards and grabbed Eggsy's arms. Eggsy began to protest but Harry didn't care. He pulled Eggsy flush against him, his superior strength meaning that Eggsy couldn't move.

Eggsy stopped struggling when he felt Harry pressed against him, their faces centimetres away from each other. Their eyes locked and all of Eggsy's annoyance melted away. He couldn't think of anything except Harry's eyes and Harry's smell and  _Harry._

"Kiss me." Harry said quietly.

"Why?" Eggsy asked, eyes wide with uncertainty.

"Because I need to know, if getting all that pain back, is worth it."

Eggsy shivered under Harry's touch, he felt like he was on trial suddenly. Like his kiss, his  _love_ would be the only thing that would make Harry return to him.

Although he supposed that was always true.

Eggsy tentatively leaned forwards, closing the gap between them and pressed his lips to Harrys. The kiss was chaste and short but Harry pinned him there, biting down on his bottom lip until Eggsy moaned, a raw, guttural sound that came from somewhere deep inside and then he was kissing Harry back, his tongue slipping through Harry's opening lips, finding his and tangling together in a wet, hot heat that was so familiar that it made Eggsy's knees buckle and he fell against Harry, but Harry's strong frame kept him grounded, kept him safe.

It was hard for Eggsy to believe that this was the same man who had tried to kill him, but at the same time, it was hard for him to believe that this was also the same man who made love to him all those months ago, who gave Eggsy everything in the world and promised he'd never leave him. The man who had died trying to save the world.

Harry was right, that wasn't who he was now, that wasn't the man Eggsy could feel beneath his fingertips, whose smell he could smell and whose taste he could taste, but it was so damn close it was painful.

"I love you." Eggsy breathed against Harry's cheek. "No matter who you are or what you do, I could never stop loving you, you bastard."

Harry paused for a moment, aware that such a declaration should have sent him into a frenzy, and it did, somewhere deep in his gut. But not because the man he used to love had just said he loved him still, but because Eggsy had given him the answer he'd been looking for.

That he would remain by his side regardless of whether he chose to rid himself of the inhibitor chip or not. Harry didn't know what he'd done to the poor boy but he'd fallen for him, hard, and so deeply there was no getting out of it again.

"I knew there was a reason I couldn't kill you." Harry murmured.

Eggsy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, way to kill the mood."

"Sorry." Harry said simply, missing the subtle sarcasm as something occurred to him in his damaged brain. Eggsy had given him everything, and he would give him everything for the rest of his life and Harry's brain was  _screaming_ at him. Like something was desperate to break free, he wanted to give Eggsy everything, he wanted to give him  _something,_ but he couldn't give him anything, not like this.

He wanted to care for him and protect him and…he wanted to love him. But there was only one way he could do that.

He became aware of Eggsy's hand traveling up his body and coming to rest on his cheek, his warm fingers stroking him to get his attention, which Harry freely gave.

The pair stared into each other's eyes for the longest time, having an unspoken conversation before Harry came to his decision, and he knew that, by the way Eggsy was looking at him, that he knew exactly what Harry had decided.

"I'm scared." Harry said quietly.

"I thought you couldn't be scared."

"It's the only way I can think to describe how I'm feeling."

Eggsy smiled minutely up at him. "You don't have to be. I'll be with you every step of the way."

"I know." Harry replied, and he would have smiled if he could. "You always have been."

"I always will."

…

Harry gently laid down on the operating table, dressed in a white gown and looking oddly vulnerable. With him were Merlin at his computer, ready to reprogram the chip so it wouldn't explode when they tried to remove it, and one of Kingsman's top brain surgeons. His name was Fischer and he was normally stationed in Berlin, but Percival had called him in, letting only the most skilled brain surgeon near his friend on such a delicate and dangerous operation.

Percival stood with Eggsy and Roxy on the other side of the glass partition, peering in to the unfolding scene before them. Eggsy felt like he should have been in there with him, that was what he had promised, after all. Merlin, however, had assured all of them that it would be safer if there were only minimal people in the operating theatre so everyone could concentrate methodically on exactly what they needed to do to pull this off. Eggsy had agreed, but still had his hands pressed against the glass, fighting the urge to press his nose against it, as well. He sent Harry a reassuring smile just as he laid down that he did not return.

Eggsy had butterflies in his stomach, he felt like he was going to puke with how nervous he was. He was nervous, yes, in case any complications arose. He couldn't easily forget that the chip they were planning to remove from Harry's freakin' brain was armed to  _explode,_ and while Eggsy trusted Merlin with his life and he had the appropriate codes from Valentine's base, there was always that element of risk, that small chance that things could go very, very wrong. Although, at this point, Eggsy wasn't sure if there was anything Harry couldn't survive.

But he was also nervous because this was the moment he'd been thinking of, constantly, since he'd found out that Harry was still alive. It seemed like a lifetime ago now when, in reality, it had only been a matter of days. But so much had happened in those few days, Eggsy had had his hopes returned and ripped away from him so many times that it made his head spin. But now, now it was actually happening, he actually stood a chance of getting Harry back, of getting his whole life back.

Suddenly, all his months of suffering, of feeling alone and obsessively cleaning Harry's house so he didn't have time to accept that he was really gone, that all dissolved away and all he could hear was the beeping of Harry's heartbeat attached to the monitor.

…

"There it is." Merlin said, releasing a small metal object covered in crusted blood from a pair of small forceps, it clattered on top of the metal table in another room in the hospital.

Percival peered down at the chip, refusing to touch it in its blood-covered state, and observed it silently for a moment before straightening and smoothing down his suit jacket.

"It's very small." He said.

Eggsy almost smiled, half-expecting him to say something a little less anti-climactic after such a build-up.

"That's the inhibitor chip?" Roxy asked. "That's what was stopping him from feeling anything and acting like a normal human?"

Merlin nodded. "It was connected to his cerebrum, more specifically the limbic system; the part of our brain that has evolved beyond animal and reptilian desires. Cutting it off to create a murdering super soldier is quite clever, actually."

Eggsy stared at him for a moment before he shook his head. "And Harry, is he okay?"

"The chip is armed with a small explosive, similar to the ones in Valentine's neck chips."

The image of the professor and his mystical exploding head flooded Eggsy's mind and he shivered, imagining how easily that could have happened to Harry.

"However," Merlin continued, "the codes I downloaded from Valentine's base have successfully stopped the chip from detonating, and Dr Fischer managed to remove it, quite painlessly."

"So, he's okay?"

"He's fine."

Eggsy breathed a sigh of relief, more audible than he was expecting but he couldn't care less. "Can I see him?" He asked immediately.

For a moment, he thought Merlin was going to say no. He thought he was going to give him some shit about needing to rest and all that, but Merlin seemed to take pity on him instead.

"I don't see why not."

Roxy and Percival, however, seemed to let their own curiosity get the better of them as they snuck in the ICU after Merlin and Eggsy. Harry wasn't attached to anything other than an IV and a heart monitor, that was beeping steadily. He was asleep but looked peaceful and well-rested.

"Is he in a coma or somethin'?" Eggsy asked, worried, as he walked up to his bed.

"He's just sleeping." Merlin said. He paused for a moment, as if trying to figure out how to word his next sentence. "He's had brain surgery, he needs time to recover but he seems fine, but…emotionally, he might be a bit more fragile. He's going to understand and feel everything he's done."

Eggsy's eyes widened in horror. "He's going to  _remember_ everything he did with that chip in?"

Merlin nodded sadly.

Eggsy looked down on Harry, so innocent and so unaware of all that was coming when he woke up.

"But…can't we make him forget?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"I'm sure Harry wouldn't want that."

"No." Eggsy admitted. "He deserves it, though."

No one said anything.

They all remained in the ICU for a long time, Percival had half-heartedly suggested leaving a few times but none of them had ever really considered it. Merlin monitored Harry's condition, Percival and Roxy sat on some plastic chairs against the wall, speaking quietly together in the way only a student and mentor could, and Eggsy had dragged one of the chairs next to the bed and was sat, gently yet absentmindedly stroking Harry's hand, it was a little cold and unresponsive. He remembered the kiss they had shared before, about how he'd convinced Harry to do this, to accept all the pain he'd been blocking out before. He felt guilty. He remembered Harry telling him  _'I'm scared',_ and he hadn't understood why. But now he did.

In a weird way, he'd been getting to know this new Harry, this Harry without feeling or expectation or inhibition, and now he would never see him again. It shocked him that this saddened him ever so slightly.

The thought fell from his mind however as Harry's hand twitch beneath his own, he looked at Harry's face and saw his eyes moving beneath his eyelids.

"Guys." Eggsy said. "He's waking up."

The three other Kingsmen crowded next to him and watched in stunned silence and baited breath as his eyes opened.

Eggsy was immediately greeted with those brown eyes, sparkling with life just as they used to before all of this, and Eggsy thought he was going to cry. He  _was_  crying. Tears were streaking down his cheeks as Harry's eyes immediately found his and locked him there, his eyes were large and questioning, full of confusion and  _emotion._

He took a moment to sit up into a sitting position, hand brushing against his fresh scar slightly.

"We have one or two things to explain to you, Harry." Percival said. "I'm not sure you fully understand how you went from Kentucky to Valerie Valentine's control but we can tell you all that in good time. You've just woken up from invasive brain surgery. Give yourself a minute."

And so he did, Harry sat awkwardly for the best part of ten minutes while Eggsy, Roxy, Merlin and Percival stared at him like his head was blue. He felt queasy.

Eggsy was still clutching his hand but Harry could barely feel it. He could barely feel anything, or, more accurately, he could feel too much. Too much.

"Harry." Eggsy finally said, voice cracking as he slowly brought his hand to Harry's cheek and let it rest there. Harry's hand shot up and he grasped Eggsy's wrist with the same finesse he'd always shown. Eggsy looked shocked but all Harry could see was blood dripping from his mouth from the bullet he'd put in his chest in that abandoned train station. His heart felt like it was going to explode under the pain. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before, he'd lost friends before, tons, and while he may have been subliminally responsible, he'd never pulled the trigger. Until now.

"What's wrong?" Eggsy asked innocently.

"Harry?" Merlin asked, confused. He wasn't expecting Harry to manhandle Eggsy like that, unless he'd suffered some amnesia from the operation…?

"Stephen." Harry said. "Charlie. They're dead. I killed them."

It took Eggsy less than half a second to figure out who Charlie and Stephen were. Gawain and Tristan.

Before anyone could say anything, Harry ripped the IV from his arm and jumped from the bed, still only clad in his hospital gown.

"No, Harry, you must get back into bed…" Percival tried, attempting to put a hand on his shoulder but, as with Eggsy, Harry batted the contact away.

"Don't touch me!" He all but shouted. "Don't come near me, I'm dangerous. I'm a fucking monster."

Before Percival could even begin to protest, Harry had raced from the room, the door banging behind him.

"Harry!" Eggsy called out, shoving the bed out of his way to get to the door and follow him.

Roxy shot her hand out and snagged him by the collar, causing him to stumble.

He stared back at her.

"Give him a minute." She said reproachfully.

Eggsy stayed planted to the floor where he stood, breathing heavily, he met Merlin's and Percival's eyes and they all seemed to be thinking exactly the same thing.

_What have we done?_


End file.
